The Philip Larkin Society

Here - May 2008

Chosen by Birte Wiemann

Swerving east, from rich industrial shadows
And traffic all night north; swerving through fields
Too thin and thistled to be called meadows,
And now and then a harsh-named halt, that shields
Workmen at dawn; swerving to solitude
Of skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares and pheasants,
And the widening river’s slow presence,
The piled gold clouds, the shining gull-marked mud,

Gathers to the surprise of a large town:
Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster
Beside grain-scattered streets, barge-crowded water,
And residents from raw estates, brought down
The dead straight miles by stealing flat-faced trolleys,
Push through plate-glass swing doors to their desires --
Cheap suits, red kitchen-ware, sharp shoes, iced lollies,
Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers --

A cut-price crowd, urban yet simple, dwelling
Where only salesmen and relations come
Within a terminate and fishy-smelling
Pastoral of ships up streets, the slave museum,
Tatoo-shops, consulates, grim head-scarfed wives;
And out beyond its mortgaged half-built edges
Fast-shadowed wheat-fields, running high as hedges,
Isolate villages, where removed lives

Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands
Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken,
Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken,
Luminously-peopled air ascends;
And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.

© The estate of Philip Larkin

I was recently doing some work on Larkin when my flatmate came into the room. As she was completely ignorant of Larkin and his poetry I handed her the Collected Poems, opened on 'Here' and she duly proceeded to read the poem. It took her some time, being German and not being a literature student, but she finally handed back the volume with tears in her eyes and said: 'I would never have found these words to say it, but I know exactly what he is trying to say.' In one single sentence, under the influence of one single poem, my friend had not only captured the essence of Larkin's poetry but had also involuntarily almost quoted the poet himself: 'I want people to say: "Yes, that's it, I know exactly what he means."' It is this recognition of the self that renders Larkin's poetry and especially 'Here' so memorable. Larkin's skilful play with the notion of the pastoral, his clever alliterations and a rhyme scheme that mirrors the train's swerving movement in the poem all lead towards one single, memorable climax: 'Here is unfenced existence'. Unfenced existence, in typical Larkin-fashion, might always remain unattainable, always just out of reach, but it is always here, always close, always a possibility. The ultimate transcendence of unfenced existence is always just at our feet, but as soon as we dare to take a step, it retreats into the distance again. And paradoxically, like a slightly jerky version of the usually impossible perpetuum mobile, this is what keeps us going.

- Birte Wiemann