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Poet
Philip Larkin
B. 1922 D. 1985
Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is a poet whose very name conjures up a specific persona: the gloomy, death-obsessed and darkly humorous observer of human foibles and failings. The truth, both about the man and his work, is more complex, but the…
Poem
‘This was Mr Bleaney’s room. He stayed The whole time he was at the Bodies, till They moved him.’ Flowered curtains, thin and frayed, Fall to within five inches of the sill, Whose window shows a strip of building…
Poem
The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too,…
Poem
The Whitsun Weddings - Philip Larkin
That Whitsun, I was late getting away: Not till about One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out, All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense Of being in a hurry gone. We ran Behind the…
Keystone
Poet
Anthony Thwaite
B. 1930 D. 2021
Anthony Thwaite (b. 1930 – d. 2021) was deeply involved in English literary life; in addition to 15 volumes of his own poetry, he was a a publisher and literary editor of magazines such as The Listener and the New…
Poet
Alan Jenkins
B. 1955
Alan Jenkins was born in Surrey in 1955 and has lived for most of his life in London. He studied at the University of Sussex and has worked for the Times Literary Supplement since 1981, first as poetry and fiction…
Poet
Carol Rumens
B. 1944
Carol Rumens, nee Lumley, was born in Forest Hill, South London. She won a scholarship to grammar school, and later studied Philosophy at London University, but left before completing her degree. She later gained a Postgraduate Diploma in Writing for…
Poet
Hannah Sullivan
B. 1979
Hannah Sullivan is an accomplished poet and academic. She was born in London and studied Classics at Cambridge; she has a PhD in English and American Literature from Harvard and is currently an Associate Professor at New College, Oxford, where she has taught since 2012, having previously taught at Stanford.
Poet
Clive James
B. 1939 D. 2019
Clive James (b. 1939, Sydney) is well known to UK audiences for work throughout the cultural sphere. His career as a poet continued alongside work that is, perhaps, more high-profile – he was the author of more than thirty books,…
Poet
Gavin Ewart
B. 1916 D. 1995
Gavin Ewart was born in London in 1916, of Scottish descent. He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and Christ’s College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, Ewart was literary editor of Granta. In 1933, at the age of seventeen, Ewart’s first…
Poet
Michael Hamburger
B. 1924 D. 2007
Michael Hamburger (1924 – 2007) was born into a German family of Jewish descent in Berlin, emigrating with them to England in 1933. He attended Westminster School and read Modern Languages at Christ Church, Oxford where his contemporaries included Philip…
Guided Tour
Poet
Connie Bensley
B. 1929
Knowing, precise and often cheerfully acerbic, Connie Bensley’s poems revel in poking gentle fun at the self-deceptions and delusions of middle-class suburban life. Whether she brings her lapidary and resolutely unadorned words to bear on our misplaced hopes and fears,…
Poet
Colette Bryce
B. 1970
Colette Bryce was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, and lived in London for many years before moving to Scotland in 2002, where she held a fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee. From 2005-2007 she was North East…
Poet
Andrew Motion
B. 1952
Andrew Motion read English at Oxford University where he won the Newdigate Prize and studied the work of Edward Thomas, an abiding influence. At Hull University he taught English and worked alongside Philip Larkin, another acknowledged mentor, whose official biographer…
Poet
Todd Swift
B. 1966
Todd Swift was born in Montreal in 1966 and grew up by the St Lawrence Seaway, a landscape that shaped the development of his imagination. He studied Creative Writing at Concordia University, tutored by Gary Geddes and Robert Allen. After…
Poet
Elizabeth Jennings
B. 1926 D. 2001
Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) was born in Boston, Lincolnshire but moved to Oxford at the age of six where she lived for the rest of her life. She studied at St. Anne’s College, Oxford and worked in advertising, at the City…