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The Sunday Sessions



As many Wasteland readers will no doubt be aware, 'lost' recordings of Philip Larkin reading his work were recently rediscovered (they'd been lying on a shelf in a garage, apparently), and the poet's publisher, Faber, are putting the twenty-six poems out as an audio CD this January, an excellent late xmas present for any fan of the poet, undeniably one of Britain's greatest postwar writers.

As the Faber website states:

The Sunday Sessions were recorded by Philip Larkin in Hull in February 1980 - reportedly, each on a Sunday, after lunch with John Weeks, a sound engineer and colleague of the poet. The tapes contain work from Larkin’s first major collection, The North Ship, as well as poems from his best-known collections, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows.

For now, you can enjoy the recording above, which features Larkin reading one of his most famous poems, 'An Arundel Tomb', in full, from The Whitsun Weddings.