[John Whitworth]

Yet another Larkin, folks.

No. 2829: Culture shock?
Peter Porter called Hull ‘the most poetic city in England’ but what would Philip Larkin have made of his adopted home city being named 2017’s City of Culture? Please email entries (16 lines maximum) to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 1 January.

[Brian Allgar]

They formed another daft committee
Mandated to name a city
Rich in culture, music, art -
Excuse me while I pause to fart -

Four candidates were in the race,
Progressing at a snail’s pace,
And when at last the judges gave
Their verdict, I turned in my grave.

How could the fools have chosen Hull,
A city that’s extremely dull
With all the sparkle of a hearse?
Of course, the rest are even worse.

I must admit I’d rather be
In Hull than in the other three
(That’s Swansea, Leicester and Dundee),
But as for culture... Well, there’s me.

[John Whitworth]

At the drop of hat, Brian. And bloody good, too.

[John Whitworth]

Have at you, Brian.

The City of Kingston-on-Hull
Is quite unbelievably dull,
As weary, nay wearier
Than a night in Siberia,
Or a wet Sunday morning in Mull.

And whenever I hear the word Cult-
ure, it conjures a horrible mulch
Of opaque foreign plays
And they go on for days,
Like being pegged out to die in a gulch.

It's as slab and as sticky as parkin,
Or a tentative grope after dark in
An old people's home,
Scarcely worth a full pome.
So these are the limericks of Larkin.

[Rob Stuart]

The third piece to offer a Hull/dull rhyme, I'm afraid.

I worry Hull will get a boost
The like of which it’s never seen
Ahead of twenty seventeen
When Whitehall cash is introduced.

Investment means we’re bound to be
Delivered from this fiscal rut.
That suits the local council, but
It’s sod all good for poetry.

The Turner Prize might help revive
The city but I’m losing sleep.
I need despondency to keep
My creativity alive.

I like to wallow in a trough
Of misery, abhorring cheer.
The only fillip needed here
Is Larkin. Tourists, bugger off!

[John Whitworth]

I think we have to take the rhyme head on. I knew about Marvell but not about Stevie Smith. Great final stanza, Rob.

[Rob Stuart]

When Whitehall cash is introduced
Ahead of twenty seventeen,
This city’s set to get a boost
The like of which it’s never seen.

Investment means we’re bound to be
Delivered from this fiscal rut.
That suits the city council, but
It’s sod all good for poetry.

The Brits and Turner will revive
Hull’s fortunes, so I’m losing sleep.
I need despondency to keep
My creativity alive.

I like to wallow in a trough
Of misery, forswearing cheer.
The only fillip needed here
Is Larkin. Tourists, bugger off!

[Ann Drysdale]

"needed", Rob?

[Rob Stuart]

Thanks Ann.

[Martin Parker]

By strange chance I have just re-read The Arundel Tombs. Following which -- and rather too quickly, I suspect :--

Side by side, uneasy pair,
Hull and Culture, fish and fowl
stuck fast together cheek by jowl
by wild ill-fortune's mad decree
to breathe a marriage's sour air
of mutual disharmony.

Their conjoined miseries will reign
while Beowolf in modern dress
and street-art outside M and S
will show Hull's fucked-up kids that here
could lurk a far more tiresome pain
than unemployment, fish and beer.

One year of Art's pretentious ills
on show in bar and park and street
where Hull and Culture failed to meet ....
and all that will survive are bills.


And a happy New Year to you all!