Lewis Blake (born June 1946) is a British

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

and

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, t ...

. He is a member of the Cambridge School of poetry, and, to a certain extent, the

British Poetry Revival "The British Poetry Revival" is the general name given to a loose poetry movement in Britain that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The revival was a modernist-inspired reaction to the Movement's more conservative approach to British poetry. T ...

Life

Blake was born in

Reydon Reydon is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish, north-west of Southwold and south-east of Wangford, in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district and the ceremonial county of Suffolk, England. Its population of 2,567 i ...

, near

Southwold Southwold is a seaside town and civil parish on the English North Sea coast in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk. It lies at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is a ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

in June 1946. He was educated at

City College Norwich City College Norwich is a college of further and higher education in Norfolk, England. It is one of the largest colleges in the country. The College has expanded in recent years following mergers with Easton College in 2020 and Paston Colleg ...

before going to read Philosophy and

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a Red brick university, red brick Russell Group research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Society of Merchant Venturers, Merchant Venturers' sc ...

. For some time he worked as a newspaper journalist as a writer of obituaries and a reviewer of literary texts. As well as working as a mainstream journalist he has also written reviews for the academic journals ELH and PMLA.

Works

Blake's works are known for their

surreal humour Surreal humour (also called surreal comedy, absurdist humour, or absurdist comedy) is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Portrayals of sur ...

, unusual use of

subordinate clause A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as th ...

s and his borrowing of esoteric, technical words. His poems include such combinations as computer acronyms and file types juxtaposed with hip-hop style speech and literary criticism and

valley girl A valley girl is a socioeconomic, linguistic, and youth subcultural stereotype and stock character originating during the 1980s: any materialistic upper-middle-class young woman, associated with unique vocal and California dialect features, fro ...

speak.

Influences

Blake's influences are wide ranging, and his poems contain eclectic references to different cultures. In particular he draws on

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

, the contemporary

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

and members of the

beat generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generat ...

References

His poetry is included in: Persing, Louisa, Ed. (1976). ''To Banbury Cross and Back: A Collection of Modern Poetry'', Palomar Publishing Co. {{DEFAULTSORT:Blake, Lewis 1946 births Living people People from Southwold English male journalists Alumni of the University of Bristol English male poets