Philip Larkin → Φίλιπ Λάρκιν

spiros

Philip Larkin, (1922–1985), an eminent writer in postwar Great Britain, was commonly referred to as "England's other Poet Laureate" until his death in 1985. Indeed, when the position of laureate became vacant in 1984, many poets and critics favoured Larkin's appointment, but the shy, provincial author preferred to avoid the limelight. An "artist of the first rank" in the words of Southern Review contributor John Press, Larkin achieved acclaim on the strength of an extremely small body of work—just over one hundred pages of poetry in four slender volumes that appeared at almost decade-long intervals. These collections, especially The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows, present "a poetry from which even people who distrust poetry, most people, can take comfort and delight," according to X. J. Kennedy in the New Criterion. Larkin employed the traditional tools of poetry—rhyme, stanza, and meter—to explore the often uncomfortable or terrifying experiences thrust upon common people in the modern age. As Alan Brownjohn notes in Philip Larkin, the poet produced without fanfare "the most technically brilliant and resonantly beautiful, profoundly disturbing yet appealing and approachable, body of verse of any English poet in the last twenty-five years." [...]
Philip Larkin : The Poetry Foundation

Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), but he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered together in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and he edited the Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse (1973). He was the recipient of many honours, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of poet laureate in 1984, following the death of John Betjeman.
Philip Larkin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ο Φίλιπ Άρθουρ Λάρκιν [Philip Arthur Larkin] (9 Αυγούστου 1922 – 2 Δεκεμβρίου 1985) είναι Άγγλος ποιητής που διετέλεσε ποιητής της αγγλικής αυλής (poet laureate). Θεωρείται ο πιο αγαπημένος ποιητής της γενιάς του. Σπούδασε Αγγλική Φιλολογία στην Οξφόρδη και εργάστηκε ως βιβλιοθηκάριος στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Hull. Ανάμεσα στα πάμπολλα βραβεία με τα οποία τιμήθηκε συμπεριλαμβάνεται το Χρυσό Μετάλλιο Ποίησης της Βασίλισσας της Βρετανίας και το βραβείο W.H. Smith.
Φίλιπ Λάρκιν - Βικιπαίδεια

Philip Larkin, (born Philip Arthur Larkin)

Poems published in Translatum:

Σύνδεσμοι

— Περιοδικό Ποιητική,16ο τεύχος, Philip Larkin – Τό ἀντι-ὅραμα Λάρκιν: 17 ποιήματα καί δύο λόγια (Θοδωρής Ρακόπουλος)
— «Όσο υπάρχει καιρός»: Αντιπροσωπευτικά ποιήματα του Φίλιπ Λάρκιν σε νέα μετάφραση | LiFO
— Κίνηση Λάρκιν (efsyn)
— Φίλιπ Λάρκιν, Όσο υπάρχει ακόμη καιρός», 50 ποιήματα, Μετάφραση: Θοδωρής Ρακόπουλος
— Όσο υπάρχει ακόμη καιρός, του Φίλιπ Λάρκιν – «η ηχώ ενός πέλεκυ μέσα στο δάσος»
— «Οι μέρες είναι εκεί όπου ζούμε» | Η ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ

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spiros

An Arundel Tomb

Philip Larkin - An Arundel Tomb - YouTube

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Philip Larkin

"An Arundel Tomb" is a poem by Philip Larkin, written and published in 1956, and subsequently included in his 1964 collection The Whitsun Weddings. It describes the poet's response to seeing a pair of recumbent medieval tomb effigies with their hands joined in Chichester Cathedral. It is described by James Booth as "one of [Larkin's] greatest poems". It comprises 7 verses of 6 lines each, each with rhyme scheme ABBCAC.
An Arundel Tomb - Wikipedia

spiros

Dockery and Son
Philip Larkin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkgkfYdaRSg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U683gwO19o

‘Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn’t he?’ said the Dean. ‘His son’s here now.’
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. ‘And do
You keep in touch with—’ Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
‘Our version’ of ‘these incidents last night’?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In ’43, when I was twenty-one.
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn

High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much ... How little ... Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong

Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of ... No, that’s not the difference: rather, how

Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They’re more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we’ve got

And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son’s harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

spiros

Next, Please

Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,

Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it's
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.

Επόμενο, παρακαλώ

Πάντα οπαδοί του μέλλοντος και της ανυπομονησίας
διαλέγουμε τη λάθος τακτική της λάθος προσδοκίας.
Πάντοτε κάτι περιμένουμε να ’ρθει, κάθε καινούρια μέρα,
κι ως τότε, απ’ τον γκρεμό ατενίζουμε, μόνο μακριά και πέρα

την έλευση των υποσχέσεων που σαν αρμάδα μοιάζει—
στόλος μικρός κι αστραφτερός, κι αργά όσο πλησιάζει
σκεφτόμαστε: «γιατί καθυστερούν, και τόσο χρόνο σπαταλούν,
τίποτα δεν τις βιάζει;»

Κι όμως, σαν φτάνουν τελικά, μαζί κι η πίκρα φτάνει·
γιατί ενώ μπαίνουν πανηγυρικά όλες μες στο λιμάνι,
σαν τα καράβια τα γυαλιστερά τα στολισμένα
με τα σκοινιά τους τακτικά και μαζεμένα,

και με τ’ ακρόπρωρά τους σκαλιστά — στήθη γυμνά
που σαν αψίδες ανοίγονται στον δρόμο μας μπροστά,
ποτέ κανένα τους δεν αγκυροβολεί:
Μόλις αγγίζουνε το σήμερα, γίνονται χθες κι έχουν χαθεί.

Κι όμως, εμείς πιστεύουμε πως κάποιο τελικά θα ξεφορτώσει,
κι όλα τα ωραία, όλα αυτά που μας χρωστά η ζωή θα μας τα δώσει,
αφού προσμέναμε τόσο πολύ, με υπομονή και πάθος.
Κάνουμε, φυσικά, μεγάλο λάθος:

Μονάχα ένα πλοίο μας αναζητά, ένα με μαύρα κι άγνωστα πανιά,
που σέρνει πίσω του μία σιωπή θεόρατη, χωρίς πετούμενα πουλιά.
Καθώς περνά, ούτε ένα κύμα δεν σηκώνεται,
ούτε ένα κύμα δεν φτάνει στη στεριά.

Τρία ποιήματα / Φίλιπ Λάρκιν - Χάρτης, Μετάφραση: Μαρία Βαχλιώτη

spiros

Η ζωή είναι τριμερής αγώνας,
ακίνητος και κλειδωμένος, ανάμεσα
στο τι θέλεις εσύ, τι θέλει ο κόσμος για σένα και (το χειρότερο)
στην ανίκητη αργή μηχανή
που φέρνει εκείνο που θα πάρεις τελικά. Μπλοκαρισμένα,
αγωνίζονται με κόπο γύρω από μια κενή στασιμότητα,
φτιαγμένη από υποχρεώσεις, φόβο, πρόσωπα.
Οι μέρες κυλούν προς τα εκεί, συνέχεια. Τα χρόνια».

«Η ζωή με μια τρύπα στη μέση», από τα Αθησαύριστα

❃ ❃

«[…]
Ακούω το χρήμα να τραγουδάει. Είναι σαν να κοιτάς μακριά,
μια πόλη επαρχιακή, μέσα από μακριά γαλλικά παράθυρα,
οι φτωχογειτονιές, το κανάλι, οι εκκλησίες στολισμένες και τρελές
στον ήλιο του δειλινού. Είναι τόσο έντονα θλιβερά».

«Χρήμα», Ψηλά Παράθυρα

Όσο υπάρχει ακόμη καιρός, του Φίλιπ Λάρκιν – «η ηχώ ενός πέλεκυ μέσα στο δάσος»