Philip Larkin

English poet and novelist

Born in 1922, in Coventry and was educated at St John's College, Oxford University, where he studied English

From 1943 he worked as a librarian in Shropshire, Leicester and Belfast, eventually moving to Hull in 1955 where he lived and worked for the rest of his life

His contribution to the moderinsing and maintenance of the University of Hull library, was a process that made the library the centrepiece of the University

Larkin's earliest poems were published as The North Ship (1945) and in a pamphlet, ** Poems (1951)

In his next collection, The Less Decieved (1955), Larkin's unique combination of the colloquial and the ruminative begins to emerge in poems like Church Going

Two later collections, The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974), extended the range if not the tone of his poetry, engaging with politics, topography and history and ancestry

Politically and aesthetically conservative

Artistically engaging

One of the 'Movement' poets

His poetry has a surface simplicity, but a deeper complexity