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John Press
John Bryant Press (11 January 1920 – 26 February 2007) was a poet, anthologist and critic who worked for the British Council for much of his life. Life The only child of Edward Press, who worked at Colman's in Norwich, John Press was born there and attended Norwich School; he then went on to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read history from 1938 to 1940. After war service in the Royal Artillery, he returned to Cambridge to complete his degree and then joined the British Council, in whose service he remained for 33 years. During that time he was posted in Greece (1946–50), India and Ceylon (1950–52), Birmingham (1952–54), Cambridge (1954–62), London (1962–5), Paris (1966–71) and Oxford (1971–8). In 1959 Press was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and served on its council from 1961 to 1988. While working for the British Council, Press was responsible for writing short surveys of the work of the poets Andrew Marvell (1958), Robert Herri ...
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British Council
The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh language in Argentina); encouraging cultural, scientific, technological and educational cooperation with the United Kingdom. The organisation has been called a soft power extension of UK foreign policy, as well as a tool for propaganda. The British Council is governed by a Royal charter#United Kingdom, royal charter. It is also a Government-owned corporation, public corporation and an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Its headquarters are in Stratford, London, Stratford, London. Its chair is Paul Thompson (administrator), Paul Thompson and its chief executive is Scott McDonald. History 1930s-40s In 1934, the British Foreign Office officials created the "British Committee ...
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University Of Cincinnati
The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati, informally Cincy) is a public university, public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1819 and had an enrollment of over 53,000 students in 2024, making it the second-largest university in Ohio. It is part of the University System of Ohio. The university's primary uptown campus and medical campus are located in the List of Cincinnati neighborhoods, Heights and Corryville, Cincinnati, Corryville neighborhoods, with branch campuses located in University of Cincinnati Clermont College, Batavia and University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College, Blue Ash, Ohio. The university has 14 constituent colleges, with programs in University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, architecture, Carl H. Lindner College of Business, business, University of Cincinnati College of Education Criminal Justice and Human Services, education, University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Appli ...
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Simon Armitage
Simon Robert Armitage (born 26 May 1963) is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds. He has published over 20 collections of poetry, starting with '' Zoom!'' in 1989. Many of his poems concern his home town in West Yorkshire; these are collected in '' Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems''. He has translated classic poems including the ''Odyssey'', the Alliterative ''Morte Arthure'', ''Pearl'', and ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. He has written several travel books including ''Moon Country'' and '' Walking Home: Travels with a Troubadour on the Pennine Way''. He has edited poetry anthologies including one on the work of Ted Hughes. He has participated in numerous television and radio documentaries, dramatisations, and travelogues. Early life and education Armitage was born in Huddersfield, West Riding of Yorkshire, and grew up in the village of Marsden, wher ...
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Carol Ann Duffy
Dame Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet laureate, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position. Her collections include ''Standing Female Nude'' (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Book Award; ''Selling Manhattan'' (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award; ''Mean Time'' (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and ''Rapture'' (2005), which won the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in accessible language. Early life Carol Ann Duffy was born into a Roman Catholic family in the Gorbals, considered a poor part of Glasgow. She was the daughter of Mary (née Black) and Frank Duffy, an electrical fitter. Her mother's parents were Irish, and ...
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Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, '' The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, '' Jill'' (1946) and '' A Girl in Winter'' (1947). He came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, '' The Less Deceived'', followed by '' The Whitsun Weddings'' (1964) and '' High Windows'' (1974). He contributed to ''The Daily Telegraph'' as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in ''All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71'' (1985), and edited '' The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse'' (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman. After graduating from Oxford University in 1943 with a first in English Language and Literature, Larkin became a librarian. It was during the thirt ...
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Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008, ''The Times'' ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British literature, British writers since 1945". He married fellow poet Sylvia Plath, an American, in 1956. They lived together in the United States and then in England, in what was known to be a tumultuous relationship. They had two children before separating in 1962. Plath ended her own life in 1963. Biography Early life Hughes was born at 1 Aspinall Street, in Mytholmroyd in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to William Henry (1894–1981) and Edith (née Farrar) Hughes (1898–1969). He was raised among the local farms of the Calderdale, Calder Valley and o ...
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George Mackay Brown
George Mackay Brown (17 October 1921 – 13 April 1996) was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist with a distinctly Orkney, Orcadian character. He is widely regarded as one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century. Biography Early life and career George Mackay Brown was born on 17 October 1921, the youngest of six children. His parents were John Brown, a tailor and postman, and Mhairi Mackay, a descendant of Clan Mackay who had been brought up in Braal, a hamlet near Strathy, Sutherland, as a native speaker of the Reay Country dialect of Scottish Gaelic. Except for periods as a mature student in mainland Scotland, Brown lived all his life in the town of Stromness on Mainland, Orkney. One of his Stromness neighbours was his friend the artist Sylvia Wishart. Because of illness, his father was restricted in his work and he received no pension. The family had a history of depression and Brown's uncle, Jimmy Brown, may have died by suicide: his body was found in Stromness harb ...
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Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under Milk Wood''. He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as '' A Child's Christmas in Wales'' and '' Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog''. He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet". Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea in 1914, leaving school in 1932 to become a reporter for the '' South Wales Daily Post''. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of "Light breaks where no sun shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara; they married in 1937 and had t ...
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Palgrave's Golden Treasury
The ''Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics'' is a popular anthology of English poetry, originally selected for publication by Francis Turner Palgrave in 1861. It was considerably revised, with input from Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, about three decades later. Palgrave excluded all poems by poets then still alive.Clare Bucknell. ''The Treasuries: Poetry Anthologies and the Making of British Culture'' (2023), Ch. 4, pp. 110-141 The book continues to be published in regular new editions; still under Palgrave's name. These reproduce Palgrave's selections and notes, but usually include a supplement of more recent poems. Christopher Ricks in 1991 produced a scholarly edition of the original ''Treasury'', along with an account of its evolution from 1861 to 1891, with inclusions and exclusions. Book I (Palgrave) William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling – Richard Barnefield – Thomas Campion – Samuel Daniel – Thomas Dekker (poet), Thomas Dekke ...
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Frome
Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills and on the River Frome, south of Bath. The population of the parish was 28,559 in 2021. Frome was one of the largest towns in Somerset until the Industrial Revolution. The town first grew due to the wool and cloth industry; it later diversified into metal-working and printing, although these have declined. The town was enlarged during the 20th century but retains a large number of listed buildings, and most of the centre falls within a conservation area. The town has road and rail transport links and acts as an economic centre for the surrounding area. It provides a centre for cultural and sporting activities, including the annual Frome Festival and Frome Museum. In 2014, Frome was named by ''The Times'' as the "sixth coolest town" in Britain. It was shortlisted as one of three towns in the country for the 2016 Urbanism Awards in the 'Great Town Award' c ...
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The Review Of English Studies
''The Review of English Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering English literature and language from the earliest period to the present and published by Oxford University Press. ''RES'' is a "leading scholarly journal of English literature and the English language" whose critical " phasis is on historical scholarship rather than interpretative criticism, though fresh readings of authors and texts are also offered in light of newly discovered sources or new interpretation of known material." Its current editors are Colin Burrow (University of Oxford), Juliette Atkinson (University College London), Philip Connell (University of Cambridge), Fiona Green (University of Cambridge) and Daniel Wakelin (University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...). ...
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Heinemann Award
The W. H. Heinemann Award is an award established by William Heinemann who bequeathed funds to the Royal Society of Literature to establish a literary prize, given from 1945 to 2003.Directory of Grants in the Humanities The Heinemann Award is given primarily to reward those classes of literature which are less remunerative; namely, poetry, criticism, biography, Awards list *1945 ''A Prospect of Flowers'', botanical reminiscences by Andrew Young, poet and vicar of Stonegate in Sussex *1946 ''The Garden'' by Vita Sackville-West *1947 ''Letters to Malaya'' by Martyn Skinner *1948 ''Selected Poems'' by John Betjeman *1951 ''Gormenghast'' and ''The Glassblowers'' by Mervyn Peake *1952 '' The Cruel Sea'' by Nicholas Monsarrat *1953 Edwin Muir *1954 ''The Ermine: poems, 1942–1952'' by Ruth Pitter (joint winner) *1954 '' The Go-Between'' by L.P. Hartley (joint winner) *1955 ''Song at the Year's Turning'' by R. S. Thomas *1956 ''Roman Mornings'' by James Lees-Milne *1958 ''The Chequer ...
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