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2007 – Third International Conference on the Work of Philip Larkin

'A Wet Week-End in England' – by Anita Weston and Elena Miraglia.

Anita Weston and Elena Miraglia reflect from Rome on the Third International Conference on the Work of Philip Larkin: The Lawns Centre, Hull, 29-30 June and 1 July 2007.
[From About Larkin 24, October 2007]

 


The Italian contingent
Enrichetta Soccio, Elena Miraglia and Anita Weston

[Anita speaking] Well, the sand-bags were piled high around the Halls, and the High Windows of our upper-floor rooms were practical and not poetic, it was waggishly explained, just in case the Eeyore weather-forecasts proved accurate. 'The Lawns', our complex was apparently called ('Lawn Larkin' has a better ring but less sense than 'Lawn Tennyson', but I like to think he chortled it to himself as he strolled around Cottingham): pleasant, comfortable and as mellow as '60s architecture can get.

For those of us used to the Morris Zapp type of conference, where you go to be seen (nobody is heard, let alone listened to) and conferees wander in and out, like a Western version of Noh Theatre, 'Larkin's Elsewheres' was beautifully, quietly purposive. Nobody wanted to be Elsewhere; each had her own small obsession, some personal, some academic, and listening to each other's papers (well, most of them) was as enjoyable as gossip. It may be the combination of University and Philip Larkin Centre which gave the range of contributor; as I remarked to a friend, so many of us were more 'Larkin fanciers' (in the sense of 'pigeon fanciers') than academics out to give a Paper, and the Private Party Room, in the evening events, seemed to be hosting precisely that.

Photograph of Anthony Thwaite[Elena speaking] You are perfectly right – no deadly academic spirits haughtily conjured up, which is quite a refreshing change. Even plenary speakers were real people in a real place. Anthony Thwaite (pictured right), for instance. Besides his 'Philip to Monica: Editing the Letters', he shared his insight into Larkin passionately and unaffectedly (after a paper, his voice could often be heard quoting the appropriate Larkin line which would eventually enlighten the discussion). And so did James Booth, too, who officially only gave a paper on 'Larkin's Americas'. His apparently cursory comments during discussions were real gems, identifying the specificity of a paper and placing it clearly for us in the broader context of 'Larkin's Elsewheres'.

[Anita speaking] Only Larkin was left out on the end of this event: otherwise, all the people associated with his life and/or his work were there: friends, a fellow librarian and secretary, and at least two people who had figured in person in his poems. And all of them were enormously generous and self-effacing: no-one wanted to star, Larkin specialists democratically gave twenty-minute papers like everyone else, poets gave more time to Larkin's poetry than their own, and personal anecdotes were elicited, not produced as trophies.

Photograph of Jean Hartley, Betty Mackereth and Don LeeLeft : Jean Hartley, Betty Mackereth and Don Lee. © Erin Watson

While some siested on Saturday, others dodged the puddles and 'safaried' around Larkin spots in Cottingham (as Don Lee optimistically put it) with himself, Jean Hartley, Betty Mackereth, and Winifred Dawson (Arnott to Larkin): a pub, a park, the church where his funeral was held, and the graveyard where he, Maeve, and Monica are buried under almost disturbingly simple stones. Jean, Betty, and Winifred read short poems or added an explanatory word, Betty smiling when 'brooms' were mentioned, and saying 'That was me: I was the "old broom"'.

The evening before, Mrs. Dawson had slipped back into the Photograph Album of the poem, and produced the counter-poem, written by the previously silent addressee, who, we were told, had been disconcerted to learn that 'Lines ...' and 'Maiden Name' had been written for her. Wonderfully for the pigeon-fanciers and memorabilia maniacs, she had also brought along the album itself, so that we were able to see her, 'slightly disturbing', in her 'trilby hat' (actually a beret); to my great disappointment, the 'reluctant cat' she was supposedly clutching (line 7) turned out to be a dog (poetic dog licence as it were). I insisted on having this in writing, and bought another Collected ... so that she could autograph the poem ('Winifred Arnott') and add, in the margin: 'sorry, it was a dog'.

Photograph of Winifred Dawson (Arnott)
Winifred Dawson (Arnott)		   Photograph of 'The Photograph Album'
The Photograph Album

In the hour before (after a very good dinner), we had been Craig Rained on, pyrotechnically, if that's not a mixed metaphor. His talk, 'Only Connect: A Counter-Intuitive Larkin' took us through his poetry's 'two-state solution' of prose and passion, à la Woolf via Forster, and offered Larkin as an agnostic mystic, 'a Marriage of Heaven and Hell'. This was a thread running through many papers, with a tiny tug of war between those claiming Christian transcendence for him, and those of us wanting to keep him for humanism. Monica thundered in the humanist camp, in our second evening's extra-curricular activity, 'A Case of the Poet', feistily written, acted, and directed by Phil Bowen, Sally George, and Kate Cheeseman respectively: two monologues 'by' Monica Jones and Caitlin Thomas, carefully documented and dramatised.

Photograph of Craig Raine
Craig Raine		   Photograph of Sally George
Sally George as Monica Jones

[Elena speaking] Later on that evening, humanism hovered also on the 'impromptu' poetry reading with Christopher Reid, Carol Rumens, David Wheatley, Cliff Forshaw and many others. Far from being a stiffly formal gathering where major verse is pitilessly imposed on helpless listeners by overemphatic readers, this was a delightful close to a long and fruitful day. Alongside Larkin and other established authors, we had a chance to listen to new original voices, such as Alexandra Davies, whose brilliant 'Philosophical Fish' I greatly enjoyed ('... Has a sole not a soul?/ Does an eel never feel?/Does a halibut not need love?/ Is the universe void of all meaning/ Or is there truly a cod?'). And I wasn't sorry to be press-ganged into reciting my own translation of 'This Be The Verse' ('Ti fottono ben bene, la mamma ed il papà./ Forse senza intenzione, ma compiono l'azione. /Ti colman delle colpe che avevano di già /E aggiungono degli extra, apposta per te.'...)

Photograph of Fran Brearton, David Wheatley, Birte Wiemann, Klara Bernat
Fran Brearton, David Wheatley,
Birte Wiemann, Klara Bernat		   Photograph of Elena Miraglia
Elena Miraglia reads
'Ti fottono ben bene, la mamma ed il papa'

In short, it was a party of bright and friendly people. And I like to think of all of us there at the conference – different people, people coming great distances, down many lines – as elsewheres sharing the same Larkinesque 'here and now'. A common idea of poetry (and of life, if you like).

Photographs © James Booth 2007

 

 

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