HERE (poem) by Philip Larkin

Here is of Larkin's more ambiguous poems and is also another poem which is based around a journey which allows the persona to think and eventually come to the point of having an epiphany. I think the main message of this poem that Larkin tries to convey, is the idea that silence isn't always a bad thing, that it can allow you to think and be peaceful for as long as you want with out being disturbed. He also presents a clear difference between the rural and urban environments.

Throughout the poem, the pace changes and movement it presented in a number of ways. Starting off fast and jolting and slowly becoming calmer, softer and more peaceful towards the end.  In the first stanza, words like 'swerving' are repeated a lot to give the impression of the fast, sharp movements of a train. Always swerving and bending in accordance with the track and the landscape. 'Halt' also suggests a sudden stop that wasn't expected. Although Larkin may not have intended it to be used in this context (Larkin is probably writing about halts as in small railway stations), it still helps to create a sense of fast movement which helps set the atmosphere for the rest of the poem. As the poem progresses the number of dynamic verbs that Larkin uses becomes less and less until the final stanza when there are non of these and we the persona has reached complete and utter stasis.

I find it really interesting how Larkin has used mechanical objects to emphasise the eternal movement that you find in towns and cities. 'Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers - ' all work because they move in some form or another. I think that here, Larkin is trying to tell us that we have become so dependent on moving constantly, and forgetting to take a moment of peace, that we have now created inventions that move for us when we ca't do everything at once.

Finally when you get to the last stanza, the repetition of 'standing', 'here', 'ends' tells us that the persona is no longer moving on the train and is now stood still and still in thought.  The poem starts off reflecting the pace of a train, then the pace of people and then slows to complete stillness.

One element that is clear throughout the entire poem is the thought that the persona that Larkin writes in has very different opinions of rural and urban environments. When describing urban 'man made' places, he uses words like 'terminate', 'fishy-smelling', 'grim' and 'the slave museum'.  He is picking out all the negatives about what this place has become since it has been industrialised. This is incredibly different to the choice of words Larkin uses when talking about the countryside and the seafront at the end of the poem. 'fenced', 'flower', 'quicken' are all words that are used to tell us about this world away from the grisly horror that man has created with his own hands. This is quite clearly very different approaches to two very different places and it is clear which of the two worlds he prefers to dwell in. (mentally as well as possibly physically? Just a thought). The fact that he makes a conscious effort to separate these two places, reiterates to us how important the rural places are for Larkin's persona, and considering the number of times that this same theme appears in his other poems, possibly Larkin himself. 'And beyond it's mortgage half-built edges', suggests the idea of these two worlds being separate and having to actually work and take a step to get from one place to another. The actual description of the edges of town make it sound almost like a prison or something equally as impenetrable, trapping the 'cut-price crowds' and the 'grim head-scarved wives' inside the town, unable to leave and find the silence and the peace that Larking lets us experience through the persona.

Staying on the topic of this rural paradise that Larkin creates for his audience/readers, I find his interpretation of silence fascinating. Normally silence and loneliness carry the connotations isolation, negativity and friendlessness, however Larkin turns this completely on it's head and presents silence as something that should be welcomed and even strives for. He talks about the small quiet villages where 'loneliness clarifies' and living in a small village myself, I can completely understand and agree with what Larkin is saying here. He is trying to convey the idea that through silence, you can think properly without the whole world invading on your mind, and everything that you've been trying to get straight in your head becomes clear because the air is clear of all the busy fumes and the negative air of the towns. Larkin's collection 'The Whitsun Weddings' from which this poem was taken, was published in 1964 when there was a lot of industry in the town and cities due to the coal mining so the air would not have been as clean as it is now. This could contribute to the foulness to urban places that Larkin presents here.

In the last stanza silence is not the only thing that Larkin puts a positive spin on. He talks about weeds and neglected waters, as well as unnoticed weeds. These would normally also be negative, people aren't exactly the biggest fan of weeds and the first thing we do is pull them out if we find the in the garden. However I believe what Larkin is trying to tell us here, is that when we take time out to be quiet and alone for a little while, things that we never knew we were capable of, or hidden characteristics that had been suppressed by the urban oppression, are able to flower within you and sometimes, these can scare us because we don't know whats happening and we destroy them or pull them out of us like weeds, but I think that Larkin is saying that if we let them mature and develop, then they can 'flower' into something beautiful. Equally, being alone for a while, can encourage us to tend to and nurture the parts of us that we have neglected and let die away.

Silence is good, it opens opportunities to really listen to our own thoughts, and to take care of ourselves from the inside as well as out.