Joseph Todd Gordon Macleod (1903–1984) was a British poet, actor, playwright, theatre director, theatre historian and

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

newsreader. He also published poetry under the pseudonym Adam Drinan.

Biography

Macleod was the son of Scottish parents, and was educated at

Rugby School Rugby School is a Public school (United Kingdom), private boarding school for pupils aged 13–18, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independ ...

and

Balliol College Balliol College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1263 by nobleman John I de Balliol, it has a claim to be the oldest college in Oxford and the English-speaking world. With a governing body of a master and ar ...

, Oxford. He passed his

bar examination A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction. Australia Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associat ...

s, though never practised as a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

, preferring a career as an actor, and also had aspirations as a poet. At Rugby he was a close friend of Adrian Stokes, and at Oxford he became a close friend of

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...

. From 1927, he was an actor and producer at the experimental

Cambridge Festival Theatre The Theatre Royal was built in the Barnwell suburb of Cambridge, England, in 1816. It closed later that century but reopened as the Cambridge Festival Theatre from 1926 until 1935. The building, in which part of the interior of the theatre sur ...

. In 1933 he became the theatre's director and lessee. Five of his own plays were staged there, including ''Overture to Cambridge'' (1933) and ''A Woman Turned to Stone'' (1934). Under Macleod, the theatre became famous throughout Europe for its avant-garde productions, and staging of lesser known works by great playwrights. Macleod staged some of

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

's Noh plays, and also some

Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright, poet and actor. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered ...

and

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

(his company, The Cambridge Festival Players, was one of the first in the UK to stage Chekhov's play ''

The Seagull ''The Seagull'' () is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 in literature, 1895 and first produced in 1896 in literature#Drama, 1896. ''The Seagull'' is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramati ...

''). The theatre was forced to close due to financial difficulties in June 1935, and has remained so ever since. He was intermittently involved in theatre production after this, and in 1952 won the Arts Council Silver Medal for his play ''Leap in September''. ''The Ecliptic'', Macleod's first book of poetry – a complex book divided into the signs of the zodiac – was published in 1930. It was approved for publication by

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

after a strong recommendation from

, who thought highly of Macleod's abilities as a poet. A long-running correspondence was thus begun between the two poets. Macleod's first book was published alongside

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...

's first book, ''Poems'', and the '' Poetry (Chicago)'' editor Morton Dauwen Zabel hailed these two poets as "a Dawn in Britain" in his editorial.K. Tuma. (1998) ''Fishing By Obstinate Isles''. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, pp. 124-125. However, Macleod's next book, ''Foray of Centaurs'', was considered "too Greek" for publication by Faber and Faber, and although this gained publication in Paris and Chicago, it was never to be published in the UK during his lifetime.

Basil Bunting Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of '' Briggflatts'' in 1966, generally regarded as one of the major achievements of the modernist traditi ...

was an admirer of this early poetry, and claimed Macleod was the most important living British poet in his 'British' edition of ''Poetry (Chicago)''. In 1937 Macleod became secretary of

Huntingdonshire Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England, which was historically a county in its own right. It borders Peterborough to the north, Fenland to the north-east, East Cambridgeshire to the e ...

Divisional Labour Party and stood as a parliamentary candidate, but failed to gain election. In 1938, Macleod became an announcer and newsreader at the BBC, and he began to write and publish poetry under the pseudonym "Adam Drinan". These poems dealt with the

Highland clearances The Highland Clearances ( , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulted from Scottish Agricultural R ...

, and described the Scottish landscape in rich detail, using Gaelic assonances. He was one of the first to succeed in rendering the qualities of Gaelic poetry in English. These poems and verse plays won praise from many Scottish writers –

Naomi Mitchison Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote more than 90 books of historical an ...

Norman MacCaig Norman Alexander MacCaig (14 November 1910 – 23 January 1996) was a Scottish poet and teacher. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity. Life Norman Alexander MacCaig was born at 15 E ...

Edwin Muir Edwin Muir CBE (15 May 1887 – 3 January 1959) was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and wit ...

Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie, (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of t ...

, George Bruce,

Sydney Goodsir Smith Sydney Goodsir Smith (26 October 1915 – 15 January 1975) was a New Zealand-born Scottish poet, artist, dramatist and novelist. He wrote poetry in literary Scots, sometimes referred to as Lallans, and was a major figure of the Scottish Renais ...

, Maurice Lindsay, and many more. Macleod's "Drinan" poetry was in much demand in both England and Scotland, as well as Ireland and the US. Editors such as Tambimuttu (of ''Poetry (London)''), Maurice Lindsay (''Poetry (Scotland)'') and

John Lehmann Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann (2 June 1907 – 7 April 1987) was an English publisher, poet and man of letters. He founded the periodicals '' New Writing'' and ''The London Magazine'', and the publishing house of John Lehmann Limited. Early ...

(Hogarth Press and New Writing), all requested and published many of his poems in the 1940s. Both "Drinan" and Macleod are included in

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (December 22, 1905 – June 6, 1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Althoug ...

's ''New British Poets'' anthology (1949), published for New Directions. The "Drinan" pseudonym was not publicly revealed until 1953, after which

Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid ( , ), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish ...

commented it was "so long one of the best-kept secrets of the contemporary literary world".Hugh MacDiarmid. From 'The Poetry of Joseph Macleod' in ''The Raucle Tongue: Hitherto Uncollected Prose, Volume III'', Eds. Angus Calder, Glen Murray and Alan Riach. Manchester: Carcanet Press, p. 312. Adrian Stokes received and dealt with Macleod's 'Drinan' correspondence. Macleod moved to

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

in 1955, where he lived until his death in 1984. His work was re-discovered in the late 1990s, and ''Cyclic Serial Zeniths from the Flux: Selected Poems of Joseph Macleod'', edited and with an introduction by Andrew Duncan, was published by Waterloo Press in 2008.

Poems

From 'Cancer, or, The Crab', a section of ''The Ecliptic'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1930) ::Moonpoison, mullock of sacrifice, ::Suffuses the veins of the eyes ::Till the retina, mooncoloured, ::Sees the sideways motion of the cretin crab ::Hued thus like a tortoise askew in the glaucous moonscape ::A flat hot boulder it ::Lividly in the midst of the Doldrums ::Sidles ::The lunatic unable to bear the silent course of constellations ::Mad and stark naked ::Sidles ::The obol on an eyeball of a man dead from elephantiasis ::Sidles ::All three across heaven with a rocking motion. ::The Doldrums: ‘region of calms and light baffling winds :::near Equator.’ ::But the calms are rare ::The winds baffling but not light ::And the drunken boats belonging to the Crab Club ::Rock hot and naked to the dunning of the moon ::All in the pallescent Saragosso weed ::And windbound, seeking distraction by the light of deliverance ::For ::What are we but the excrement of the non-existent noon? ::: (Truth like starlight crookedly) ::What are we all but ‘burial grounds abhorred by the moon’? ::And did the Maoris die of measles? So do we. ::But there is no snow here, nor lilies. ::The night is glutinous ::In a broad hearth crisscross thorn clumps ::Smoulder: distant fireback of copse ::Throws back silence: glassen ashes gleam in pond ::The constellations which have stopped working (?) ::Shimmer. No dead leaf jumps. ::On edge of a glowworm ::Hangs out its state-recognized torchlamp ::Blocks of flowers gape dumb as windows with blinds drawn ::And in the centre the rugate trees ::Though seeming as if they go up in smoke ::Are held like cardboard where they are. ::Bluehot it is queer fuel to make the moon move. :: ..::We trap our goldfinch trapping our souls therewinged ::Sacrifice our mad gods to the madder gods: ::We hymn the two sons of Leda and Zeus Aegis-bearer ::We don’t. We drink and drivel. My :::poor Catullus, do stop being such a :::Fool. Admit that lost which as you watch is :::gone. O, once the days shone very bright for :::you, when where that girl you loved so (as no :::other will be) called, you came and came. And :::then there were odd things done and many :::which you wanted and she didn’t not want. :::Yes indeed the days shone very bright for :::you. But now she doesn’t want it. ::::::::Don’t you either, :::booby. Don’t keep chasing her. Don’t live in :::misery, carry on, be firm, be hardened. :::Goodbye girl: Catullus is quite hardened, :::doesn’t want you, doesn’t ask, if you’re not :::keen – though sorry you’ll be to be not asked. :::Yes, poor sinner . . . what is left in life for :::you? Who’ll now go with you? Who’ll be attracted? :::Whom’ll you love now? Whom may you belong to? :::Whom’ll you now kiss? Whose lips’ll you nibble? :::- Now you, Catullus, you’ve decided to be hardened. ::How can I be hardened when the whole world is fluid? ::O Aphrodite Pandemos, your badgers rolling in the moonlit corn ::Corn blue-bloom-covered carpeting the wind ::Wind humming like distant rooks ::Distant rooks busy like factory whirring metal ::Whirring metallic starlings bizarre like cogwheels missing teeth ::These last grinning like the backs of old motor cars ::Old motor cars smelling of tragomaschality ::Tragomaschality denoting the triumph of self over civilisation ::Civilization being relative our to Greek :::::::Greek to Persian :::::::Persian to Chinese ::Chinese politely making borborygms to show satisfaction ::Satisfaction a matter of capacity ::Capacity not significance: otherwise with an epigram ::Epigrams – poems with a strabismus ::Strabismus being as common spiritually as optically the moon ::The moon tramping regular steps like a policeman past the :::::::::::houses of the Zodiac ::And the Zodiac itself, whirling and flaming sideways ::Circling from no point returning to no point ::Endlessly skidding as long as man skids, though never moving, :::Wavers, topples, dissolves like a sandcastle into acidity. ::Is there nothing more soluble, more gaseous, more imperceptible? ::Nothing. ::Riddle-me-ree from ''An Old Olive Tree'' (Edinburgh: M. MacDonald, 1971) ::I was afraid and they gave me guts. ::I was alone and they made me love. ::Round that wild heat they built a furnace ::and in the torment smelted me. ::Out of my fragments came design: ::I was assembled. I moved, I worked, ::I grew receptive. Thanks to them ::I have fashioned me. :::::::Who am I?

Bibliography

Poetry

*''The Ecliptic'' (Faber and Faber, 1930) *''Foray of Centaurs'' (Sections published in ''This Quarter'', Paris, 1931, ''The Criterion'', 1931, and ''Poetry'' (Chicago), 1932) *''The Cove'' (French & Sons, 1940) *''The Men of the Rocks'' (Fortune Press, 1942) *''The Ghosts of the Strath'' (Fortune Press, 1943) *''Women of the Happy Island'' (MacLellan & Co., 1944) *''The Passage of the Torch: A Heroical-Historical Lay for the Fifth Centenary of the Founding of Glasgow University'' (Oliver and Boyd, 1951) *''Script From Norway'' (MacLellan & Co., 1953) *''An Old Olive Tree'' (M. Macdonald, 1971)

Literary Criticism

*''Beauty and the Beast'' (Chatto and Windus, 1927; Viking Press (USA), 1928; Haskell House (USA), 1974)

Novel

*''Overture to Cambridge'' (Allen & Unwin, 1936)

Prose

*''People of Florence'' (Allen & Unwin, 1968)

Theatre History

*''The New Soviet Theatre'' (Allen & Unwin, 1943) *''Actors Cross the Volga'' (Allen & Unwin, 1946) *''A Soviet Theatre Sketchbook'' (Allen & Unwin, 1951) *''Piccola Storia del Teatro Britannico'' (Sansoni (Florence), 1958. Reissued 1963) *''The Sisters d'Aranyi'' (Allen & Unwin, 1969) *''The Actor's Right to Act'' (Allen & Unwin, 1981)

Autobiography

*''A Job at the BBC'' (MacLellan & Co., 1946)

References

External links

*
Joseph Todd Gordon Macleod
– with audio recordings
Joseph Macleod Collection at the University of Stirling Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macleod, Joseph BBC newsreaders and journalists 1903 births 1984 deaths 20th-century Scottish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British poets 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights British male poets British male dramatists and playwrights 20th-century British male writers Scottish Renaissance People educated at Rugby School