This episode features Belfast arts manager Hugh Odling- Smee and PLS trustee Philip Pullen who, as part of his centenary lecture tour, took part in the 2022 Belfast International Arts Festival with a talk on Larkin in Belfast. Hugh and Phil discuss the literary heritage that Belfast enjoys and Larkin’s life in Belfast between 1950 and 1955.

Books and writers discussed:

A Rumoured City: New Poets from Hull by Douglas Dunn (Editor), Philip Larkin (foreword), (Bloodaxe, 1982)

Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse ed. Philip Larkin (OUP, 1973)

Andrew Motion- Larkin A Writer’s Life (Faber, 2018)

Belfast poets: John Hewitt (1907-1987), Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)

Brian Moore (1921-1999)- The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (HarperCollins 1955),  (Harper Perennial Modern Classics series, 2007 re-issue)/film version dir. Jack Clayton (1987)

Odd Man Out (1945)- FL Green

The Importance of Elsewhere- Richard Bradford (Frances Lincoln, 2015)

Letters to Monica by Philip Larkin ed. Antony Thwaite (Faber, 2011)

Larkin poems:

The Less Deceived (Faber 1955)

The Importance of Elsewhere, Maiden Name, Absences, Single to Belfast (unpublished during lifetime), Water, Church Going, Mr Bleaney, Lines on a Young Lady’s Photograph Album, Reasons for Attendance

Philip Pullen ‘s Belfast talk : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxbKmDJUOH4 The Importance of Elsewhere - Philip Pullen presentation, Belfast International Arts Festival 2022

Larkin100 events: https://philiplarkin.com/news/larkin100-whats-coming-up/

Presented by Lyn Lockwood.

Theme music: 'The Horns Of The Morning' by The Mechanicals Band. Buy 'The Righteous Jazz' at their Bandcamp page: https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Audio editing by Simon Galloway.

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Find out more about the Philip Larkin Society here -