Poetry for the city? Philip Larkin and Others

Philip Larkin will surely feature in our year as City of Culture in 2017 as the most famous and popular writer in modern times to dwell in and write about Hull. His poetry and that of others like him who have by turns celebrated and criticised the city’s qualities will be taken as the basis to revive the suggestion that Hull is a ‘poetic’ place. This session will look at what Larkin and others actually have to say about Hull and ask how people today engage with these poems and the ideas they contain. Dr Daniel Weston is Lecturer in Twentieth-Century English Literature at the University of Hull. He has research interests in a broad span of twentieth- and twenty-first-century poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose. He is currently working on a study of contemporary poetry addressing issues of environment and ecology. James Underwood is a PhD candidate and part-time tutor in the Department of English, University of Hull. His research, funded by a University scholarship, focuses on identity in the work of Philip Larkin