This and that about Philip Larkin

For no specific reason, but for that I found a lot of mention of Larkin in a novel that deals with the tragicomic lives of  "deafies" that I recently managed to finish (thanks to train travel), I have been reading up on Larkin. And also getting re-acquainted with some of his poems -- I remember reading a lot of his poems, after the sock in the gut impact of reading "This Be The Verse" for the first time. But then, you know how it is with me, I am certainly not constructive in the way I read poetry, so I don't really remember much of what I have read of Larkin's poems.

And then again, maybe the blame is not entirely mine, for as it is with AK Ramanujan and "The River" or with Nissim Ezekiel and "Night of The Scorpion", so it is with Philip Larkin and "This Be The Verse". I mean, what other Larkin poem will one remember / relate to (as a reader and not necessarily as someone who "agrees" with what the poem says) after getting "a sock in the gut" from "This Be The Verse" ?

So there.

And speaking of reading up on him -- well I found this lovely piece on him that makes for interesting reading. 

Not that reading up on Larkin demystifies him or translates his poetics -- his verse still remains verse, to be assimilated and enjoyed in the vocabulary of poetry -- but one does get a fair amount of insight into what shaped his poetic mettle, and served him as ink.

Would seem (on the basis of what I can gather from reading about him without claiming any scholarly application of mind) that Larkin was largely stoic as well...but then which wise poet / lay "deafie" isn't that anyway?    

Personally speaking, I do know (from the novel I mentioned reading) that Larkin was bothered about not being able to hear the larks singing, a fact brought to home when he was interrogated on it, while on a walk with a companion. I wonder, did he ever "get used" to it?

Who knows.