Philip Larkin

Larkin worked as librarian at the University of Hull from 1955 until his death in 1985. Many readers connect his reserved public life in Hull with the plainspoken tone of poems such as The Whitsun Weddings.

The title poem follows a train journey through England on a Whitsun weekend, watching newly married couples board along the route. The collection was published in 1964 and became one of Larkin's defining books.

This Be The Verse is famous for its blunt opening line about parents and inherited damage. It appeared in the 1974 collection High Windows and shows Larkin's gift for making formal verse sound conversational.

Yes, Larkin is often linked with The Movement, a 1950s British grouping associated with clarity, irony, and resistance to grand modernist rhetoric. Other names often connected with it include Kingsley Amis and Thom Gunn.