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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Poetry Extra

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly opportunity for listeners to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

A brand new poetry slot on Radio 4 Extra gives listeners a weekly opportunity to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

Poetry Extra: The Whitsun Weddings

30/09/2018

The Whitsun Weddings

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, The Whitsun Weddings

Poet Daljit Nagra chooses The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin.

4 Extra Debut. Poet Daljit Nagra chooses The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin. Presented by Jean Sprackland. From December 2013.

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin. 

This was the title poem of the collection published in 1964 that made Larkin famous. Poet Jean Sprackland, who teaches Larkin and whose father, a librarian, met him professionally, retraces the train journey at the heart of the poem.

She considers Larkin's views about marriage, about class and about the 'state of Britain', against the background of the poet's own seemingly quiet life in the provincial town of Hull.

For many, Whitsun Weddings is Philip Larkin's most characteristic poem, expressing his detachment from the crowd and from love and marriage of the ordinary sort.

With James Booth, Andrew Motion, John Osborne and Larkin's surviving mistress, the 'third woman' Betty Mackereth.

Producer: Susan Marling

A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.

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