The Library

Philip Larkin at Brynmor Jones Library 
at the University of Hull

THE LIBRARY

“dwindling, went”

—Philip Larkin, 

The Importance of Elsewhere

THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS

Standing here by the card catalog—

This photo surely as ancient as I am

Here in the Brynmor Jones Library

The Library, since it wasn’t home—

Its strangeness made sense, a kind of

Rebuff of speech by the written word

Insisting so on the difference but—

Making me feel welcome: once that 

Was recognized, we were in touch 

Those secluded dead-end stacks—

Archaic smell of books like a temple 

Proving me separate, but knowable

Living in Hull was fairly ideal—

Here no elsewhere underwrote my 

Existence, how could I refuse?