{ Philip Larkin: Broadcast. }

[delga]

We studied The Whitsun Weddings during my final year of secondary school and whilst there's a tendency to see the bitterness of Larkin in everything that he does, our class went out of our way to find the positive elements in his writing. The thing is: it's there, in every single one. Beneath the cynicism, there's something sweeter.

Broadcast (like Love Songs in Age and Talking in Bed) is one of my favourite Larkin poems. There's something so precise about it, and the idea is genius. For those that care, this poem was also the impetus for gloves, and the canvas floor.

--

Broadcast
by Philip Larkin

Giant whispering and coughing from
Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces
Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum,
'The Queen', and huge resettling. Then begins
A snivelling of the violins:
I think of your face among all those faces,

Beautiful and devout before
Cascades of monumental slithering,
One of your gloves unnoticed on the floor
Beside those new, slightly-outmoded shoes.
Here it goes quickly dark. I lose
All but the outline of the still and withering

Leaves on half-emptied trees. Behind
The glowing wavebands, rabid storms of chording
By being distant overpower my mind
All the more shamelessly, their cut-off shout
Leaving me desperate to pick out
Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding.

 

Comments

[emer-the-lemur.livejournal.com]

Have you read An Arundel Tomb? It's one of favourite poems, and you're right, it's that sweetness beneath the morbidity that makes it so oddly beautiful.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've read the whole collection - it's the last one in that text. Larkin has such a focus when he writes. Love it.