Harry Ricketts
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Harry Ricketts (born 1950) is a poet, biographer, editor, anthologist, critic, academic, literary scholar and cricket writer. He has written biographies of
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
and of a dozen British
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
poets.


Life

Ricketts was born in London in 1950. His father, Jack (John) Ricketts, was a career officer in the
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
, serving in
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and in Malaya and Hong Kong in the 1950s. Ricketts was brought up in London,
Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...
and Hong Kong. He was educated first at a prep school in Kent and later at Wellington College, Berkshire. From an early age, Ricketts developed an interest in
cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
and opened the bowling for two years for the Wellington College First XI. After school, he studied English at
Oxford University The University of Oxford is a 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 second-oldest continuously operating u ...
completing a BA (1st Class Honours) and an MLitt on Kipling's short stories (1975). He then taught at the
University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...
(1974–1977) and the
University of Leicester The University of Leicester ( ) is a public university, public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, Univ ...
(1978–1981) before moving to
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. At Leicester, he knew the poet and critic G. S. Fraser and became friends with the poet Robert Wells (poet). In 1981, Ricketts took up a lectureship in the English Department at
Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...
in New Zealand and for many years has run a Modern Poetry course, combining British, American and New Zealand poets. In the 1990s he taught poetry workshops for the Continuing Education Centre at Victoria and more recently has taught non-fiction and fiction writing courses for the IIML ( International Institute of Modern Letters).


Literary output

Ricketts began writing poetry at school. At Oxford he was arts editor of the student newspaper '' Cherwell'' and wrote for the ''OSAC'' magazine, interviewing writers like John Wain. During the 1980s, he started to publish academic work, such as an edition of Rudyard Kipling's ‘lost’ New Zealand story "One Lady at Wairakei" (1983) and a valuable book of interviews with New Zealand poets, ''Talking about Ourselves'' (1986). This book introduced Ricketts to the New Zealand poetry scene, and he became friends with the Wellington poets Louis Johnson and
Lauris Edmond Lauris Dorothy Edmond (née Scott, 2 April 1924 – 28 January 2000) was a New Zealand poet and writer. Biography Born in Dannevirke, Hawke's Bay, Edmond survived the 1931 Napier earthquake as a child. Trained as a teacher, she raised a fa ...
. He also became involved with the New Zealand Poetry Society, edited anthologies for them, was president for a time in the late 1980s, and at Victoria encouraged his students through the student publication ''Writings'' and later ''JAAM'' magazine in the 1990s, a Victoria Writer's Club magazine that became international. Roger Robinson comments on his poetry that: "Ricketts’ best are either deftly satiric 'light verse' ... or wry commentaries on the perplexities of love, marriage or parenthood." Aside from his own literary writing, Ricketts has been an
anthologist In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and ge ...
since the 1990s. His work in this field includes ''How You Doing?: A Selection of New Zealand Comic and Satiric Verse'' (1998), with Hugh Roberts, and a two-volume series of spiritual verse anthologies, co-edited with Paul Morris and Mike Grimshaw, before editing ''The Awa Book of New Zealand Sports Writing'' (2010). His sports anthology was one of the Best 100 Books of 2010 in the ''
New Zealand Listener The ''New Zealand Listener'' is a weekly New Zealand magazine that covers the political, cultural and literary life of New Zealand by featuring a variety of topics, including current events, politics, social issues, health, technology, arts, f ...
''. A ''
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' reviewer observed of ''The Unforgiving Minute'' that: 'of all the Kipling biographies, Harry Ricketts is the most balanced.' ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...
'' reviewer in turn noted that 'Ricketts, a poet, is invaluable in analysing the subtleties and the modernist techniques that went into Kipling's popular, accessible work.' In 2010, with Paula Green, he co-authored the poetry primer ''99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry'' (2010). He has also contributed scholarly entries to the ''Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature'', reviewed books for Radio New Zealand National, acted as a theatre critic for the
New Zealand Listener The ''New Zealand Listener'' is a weekly New Zealand magazine that covers the political, cultural and literary life of New Zealand by featuring a variety of topics, including current events, politics, social issues, health, technology, arts, f ...
(1998–2007), and co-edited the review journal ''New Zealand Books since the late 1998''. Ricketts was awarded the Pou Aronui Award by
Royal Society Te Apārangi The Royal Society Te Apārangi (in full, Royal Society of New Zealand) is a not-for-profit body in New Zealand providing funding and policy advice in the fields of sciences and the humanities. These fundings (i.e., Marsden grants and research fe ...
in 2021.


Publications by Harry Ricketts


Anthologies

* ''How You Doing?: A Selection of New Zealand Comic and Satiric Verse'', with Hugh Roberts, Lincoln University Press/Daphne Brasell Associates Press/Whitireia Publishing, Wellington, New Zealand, 1998. * ''Spirit in a Strange Land: A Selection of New Zealand Spiritual Verse'', with Mike Grimshaw and Paul Morris, Random House/Godwit, Auckland, New Zealand, 2002. (Winner of the Montana Anthology and reference section 2003.) * ''Spirit Abroad: A Second Selection of New Zealand Spiritual Verse'', with Mike Grimshaw and Paul Morris, Random House/Godwit, Auckland, New Zealand, 2004. * ''The Awa Book of New Zealand Sports Writing'', Awa Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2010. * ''Running Writing Robinson'' (Festschrift for Professor Roger Robinson), with David Carnegie, Paul Millar, David Norton, Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2011. *''Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing the Empty Page'', with Siobhan Harvey and James Norcliffe, Godwit, Auckland, New Zealand, 2014.


Biographies

* ''The Unforgiving Minute: A Life of Rudyard Kipling,'' Pimlico, London, UK, 1999. (published in the US as ''Rudyard Kipling: A Life'', Carroll & Graf, New York City, 2000. ) * '' Strange Meetings: The Lives of the Poets of the Great War'', Chatto & Windus, London, UK, 2010.


Poetry

* ''Coming Under Scrutiny'', Original Books, Wellington, New Zealand, 1989. * ''Coming Here'', Nagare Press, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1989 * ''A Brief History of New Zealand Literature'', Fawthorpe Garlick, Wellington, New Zealand, c.1996. * ''How Things Are'', with Adrienne Jansen, Meg Campbell and J. C. Sturm, Whitireia Publishing, Wellington, New Zealand, 1996. * ''13 Ways'', Pemmican Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 1997. * ''Nothing to Declare: Selected Writings 1977–1997'', HeadworX Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand, 1998. * ''Plunge'', Pemmican Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2001. *''Your Secret Life'', HeadworX Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand, 2005. * ''Just Then'', Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2012. *''Half Dark'', Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2015. *''Winter Eyes'', Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2018. *''Selected Poems'', Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2021.


Fiction

* ''People Like Us: Sketches of Hong Kong'', Eurasia Publishing Corp., Hong Kong, 1977.


Non-fiction/criticism

* ''How to Live Elsewhere'', Four Winds Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2004. * ''How to Catch a Cricket Match'', Awa Press, Wellington, New Zealand, 2006. * ''99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry'', Random House/Vintage, Auckland, New Zealand, 2010.


Edited

* ''One Lady at Wairakei'', Rudyard Kipling, Mallinson Rendel, Wellington, New Zealand, 1983. * ''Talking About Ourselves: Twelve New Zealand Poets in Conversation with Harry Ricketts'', Mallinson Rendel, Wellington, New Zealand, 1986. * ''Worlds of Katherine Mansfield'', Nagare Press, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1991; 1992 2nd edition. * ''Under Review: A Selection from New Zealand Books 1991–1996'', with Bill Sewell and Lauris Edmond, Lincoln University Press/Daphne Brasell Associates Press, Lincoln, New Zealand, 1997. * ''The Long Trail: Selected Poems, Rudyard Kipling'', Carcanet, Manchester, UK, 2004.


References


External links


profile
on New Zealand Book Council website
Harry Ricketts’ publication record
at Department of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies, Victoria University of Wellington
Ingrid Horrocks’ launch speech
for Harry Ricketts' Just Then (2012)
Harry Ricketts looks back on 21 years of ''NZ Review of Books / Pukapuka Aotearoa''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricketts, Harry 1950 births Living people People educated at Wellington College, Berkshire Alumni of the University of Oxford New Zealand poets New Zealand male poets New Zealand biographers New Zealand male biographers Writers from London English emigrants to New Zealand Academic staff of Victoria University of Wellington