Philip Larkin and Planning in Semington

50 years ago, Philip Larkin was commissioned to write a poem as a prologue to a UK government report on the environment: How Do You Want To Live?

Larkin was always going to be a risky choice for such a venture, and the commissioning committee was so discomforted with what he submitted that it demanded cuts, something which Larkin went along with.  Whilst what this gloomy poem anticipates has not yet fully taken place, every time another landowner or development company submits a planning application to build a few dozen houses in the village it’s hard not to think of it.

Larkin published a slightly revised version of the poem with the missing bits added back in under the title Going, Going in his collection High Windows.  You can listen to him reading it here.