Milestones

DIED. Philip Larkin, 63, critically acclaimed British poet of almost defiant diffidence and pervasive melancholy who once said that "deprivation is for me what daffodils were to Wordsworth"; of throat cancer; in Hull, England. A reclusive provincial librarian for more than 40 years after graduating from Oxford, Larkin honed his clarity of observation, particularly regarding homely, accessible subject matter, in two novels (Jill, 1946, and A Girl in Winter, 1947) and four spare collections of verse published at roughly ten- year intervals. He shunned the readings, lectures and interviews that increasing fame brought him. The overwhelming favorite to succeed Poet Laureate John Betjeman after his death in 1984, Larkin refused to comment on reports that he had been offered the post (which eventually went to Ted Hughes) and turned it down.