The first word of the poem, ‘Swerving’, presents an immediate sense of physical movement in the poem. However, it is not the traditional, vehicle sort of movement; trains and cars do not swerve. The movement in ‘Here’ is immediately free and unrestrained, as the ‘rich industrial shadows’ are left behind. This freedom of movement however, immediately contrasts with the ‘traffic all night north’, which momentarily stops the poem in its tracks, made clear by the following semi-colon which breaks up the line. One could say this underlying contradiction sums up the poem nicely, the rural/urban theme the beauty/harsh. However, the poem immediately starts up again, with the repetition of the word ‘swerving’ which reinforces the sense of free movement. Now, Larkin takes us through the ‘fields/too thin and thistled to be called meadows’, before the poem is again interrupted by the influence of the human world where the poem halts for the ‘Workmen at dawn’. Larkin then repeats ‘Swerving’ for a third time. On three different occasions the word is used; each time to the same effect. On each occasion the persona seems to be trying to escape from the reality of mankind’s harm on the natural world. The Second Stanza explores the over crowdedness of urban England by putting in as much content in as possible. The line “Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster beside grain-scattered streets, barge-crowded water” is in a list structure and gives a sense of the “cluster” of the urban surroundings. These lists continue through the stanza and into the third where Larkin still describes this town in a list, which to read makes the reader bump awkwardly over the commas and punctuation, emphasising the unsettling nature of the urban environment. Larkin is quite dismissive of these urban dwellers in the third stanza describing them as simple, from “raw estates” and cut-price, which points towards the poet’s dislike of modern consumerism and modernisation in his home country of England. Such disdain for the lower classes may alienate a socialist or working class reading of this poem as derogatory specifically where Larkin uses the word stealing in relation to .
The poem as a whole seems to suggest that nature can provide freedom and comfort for those who want to escape the bustle of city life where in the final stanza the speaker appaers to find find freedom with “unfenced existence” in the way that the speaker has been liberated. Dannie Abse’s poem “Return to Cardiff” is similar to Larkin’s “Here” in that it is roughly a description of their homeland and both discuss the positive and negative sides to the place. Abse’s return to his home city of Cardiff is full of nostalgia and memory, relating the “back lane” to his first cigarette and “botched love affair”. However much like “Here” the poem then turns to more sour reading, many of his memories have been warped and lead the speaker to feel lonely when reminiscing, “a city of strangers” leads the speaker to feel upset; his childhood has been destroyed because nothing is how he remembers it. Furthermore, in relation to his trip down memory lane, he remembers things weren’t so great before he left Cardiff, “where the boy I was not and the man I am not”. He is saying that he wasn’t accepted in his hometown originally; possibly due to his Jewish heritage, and that now in the present he isn’t even from Wales anymore and is a complete outsider, who doesn’t have a place to belong to.
The poem entitled “The Whitsun Weddings” is an observational piece by Larkin where he travels from Hull to London by train so therefore the poet discusses “place” in depth. The poem has seven stanzas and is is typical of Larkin. The words are simple, the emotions are blunted and the verse is packed with cynicism. At a time when most of the families in Great Britain were in a celebratory Bank holiday mood Larkin is feeling rushed as he embarks on his train journey from the north to the south of England. The brilliant sunlight was “almost blinding” and the heat had further heightened the smell emanating from the already very smelly fish dock; we can sense that the start of the journey is not scenic and the air is not aromatic but Larkin appears semi-content about his forthcoming journey. This imperfection is his journey perhaps represents his attitudes towards England as a place; it has beauty but is often tarnished. In stanza two he emphasises how hot it is, “All afternoon through the tall heat that sleep for miles inland”. At this point in his journey southwards he is noticing the hedgerows, the fields, the farmland filled with cattle but the is somewhat spoiled because the cloth train seat is permeated with all kinds of unpleasant smells, however it is clear that Larkin has a love of the English countryside “and now and then a smell of grass”. Yet like much of Larkin’s poetry such beauty is then warped, with the pretty canals ruined by “floating of industrial froth”.
To conclude both Larkin and Abse treat “place” with some of affection, especially with regards to their homeland, England for Larkin and Wales for Abse. However they differ in that this affection and nostalgia is limited for different reasons. Larkin expresses no desire indulge in childhood memories or nostalgia in terms of any specific places, instead focusing on generic English countryside, whereas Abse is bitter with regards to lack quest for belonging that he neither receives or did receive as shown in “Return to Cardiff”. Larkin is somewhat optimistic with regards to place and expresses how it can inspire people and be a source of escapism, “facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.”
