THE TRAIL
To follow in Larkin’s tracks is to take not only a literary journey, but also journeys through diverse landscapes and rich architecture and, seeing the city through a poet’s eyes, to gain a philosophical view of the place where Larkin lived and worked for three decades.
This diverse Trail takes you on a journey through Larkin’s Hull, which today remains very much ‘a working city, yet one neither clenched in the blackened grip of the industrial revolution nor hiding behind a cathedral to pretend it is York or Canterbury’.
The Larkin Trail consists of three parts- Larkin’s Here (City Centre) starts at Hull’s Paragon Interchange and takes in sites across the city, ending at the Hull History Centre. Larkin’s Here (Beyond the City Centre) enables visitors to explore the fringes of the city, particularly the University and Avenues area where Larkin spent much of his time. Larkin’s Elsewhere encourages an exploration of the wider countryside, celebrated in Larkin’s writing and captured in many of his photographs and letters.
LARKIN
Philip Larkin is widely considered to be Britain’s greatest post-war poet. Born in Coventry in 1922, he lived the greater part of his working life in Hull, having moved here in his early 30s to take up the post of University Librarian. Larkin’s second collection, The Less Deceived, published by the Hull-based Marvell Press run by Jean and George Hartley, brought him fame in 1955, followed by The Whitsun Weddings in 1964 and High Windows ten years later. (Reference is made to poems from these collections and to other pieces of his work throughout the Trail.)
Larkin was also a distinguished jazz critic, literary critic and a compulsive writer of letters, many of which have now been published. Many more, held by the Larkin Archive in the Hull History Centre (no.11 on the Trail), await publication.
If you would like to discover more about Larkin visit The Philip Larkin Society.