Larkin lover's secret poem.Byline: DEAN VALLERAN undiscovered poem by Coventry-born poet Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL, (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist and jazz critic. He spent his working life as a university librarian and was offered the Poet Laureateship following the death of John Betjeman, but declined the post. has been published for the first time. The untitled poem, which includes trademark Larkin issues about the passing of love, relationships and the seasons, was revealed to members of the Philip Larkin Society in its latest newsletter. The poem was kept secret for 26 years by Mr Larkin's former secretary and lover Betty Mackereth, who lives in Hull. He sent her the poem during their affair in the mid-1970s while he was spending a week at All Souls College in Oxford in 1976. Larkin, who died in 1985, is recognised as one of the most important writers of the 20th century. He grew up in Manor Road, close to Coventry railway station Coventry railway station, just outside the centre of the city of Coventry, lies on the Birmingham loop of the West Coast Main Line, and forms a junction where lines to Nuneaton and to Oxford, Reading and the south coast, join the southbound WCML towards London. . He was the son of Sydney Larkin, the city council's brilliant but controversial former treasurer, famous for keeping a small bust of Hitler on his council office mantelpiece for most of the Second World War. Peter Walters, image manager at city centre firm CV One, erected a plaque to Larkin at Coventry station in 1999. He said: "This is an imp-ortant discovery - as is any poem by Larkin - he is arguably the greatest English poet of the last 50 years and it is always an event when new poems New Poems is a collection of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. He began collecting the poems in 1906, published New Poems in 1907, and in the following year published a second volume of additional poems. are discovered" We met at the end of the party When all the drinks were dead And all the glasses dirty; Have this that's left, you said When shadows reached long and blue Across days that were growing shorter You said There's autumn too. Always for you what's finished Is nothing and what survives Cancels the failed, the famished fam·ish v. fam·ished, fam·ish·ing, fam·ish·es v.tr. 1. To cause to endure severe hunger. 2. To cause to starve to death. v.intr. 1. As if we had fresh lives From the night on, and just living Could make me unaware Of June, and the guests arriving And I not there. CAPTION(S): Philip Larkin and (right) his newly-published poem |
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