Martyn Crucefix (born 1956 in

Trowbridge Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England; situated on the River Biss in the west of the county, close to the border with Somerset. The town lies south-east of Bath, Somerset, Bath, south-west of Swindon and south-east of Brist ...

, Wiltshire) is a British poet, translator and reviewer. Published predominantly by

Enitharmon Press Enitharmon Press is an independent British publishing house specialising in artists' books, poetry, limited editions and original prints. The name of the press comes from the poetry of William Blake: Enitharmon was a character who represented s ...

, his work ranges widely from vivid and tender lyrics to writing that pushes the boundaries of the extended narrative poem. His themes encompass questions of history and identity (particularly in the 1997 collection ''A Madder Ghost)'' and – influenced by his translations of

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...

– more recent work focuses on the transformations of imagination and momentary epiphanies. His new translation of Rilke's ''Sonnets to Orpheus'' was published by Enitharmon in the autumn of 2012. Most recent publication is ''The Time We Turned'' published by Shearsman Books in 2014.

Life

Crucefix attended Trowbridge Boys' High School, then spent a year studying medicine at

Guy's Hospital Medical School King's College London GKT School of Medical Education (often referred to simply as GKT) is the medical school of King's College London. The school has campuses at three institutions, Guy's Hospital (Southwark), King's College Hospital ( Denma ...

, before switching to take a degree in English literature at

Lancaster University Lancaster University (officially The University of Lancaster) is a collegiate public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several new univer ...

. He completed a D.Phil. at

Worcester College, Oxford Worcester College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms was ad ...

, writing on the poetry of

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...

and Enlightenment and Romantic theories of language. He teaches in North London and is married to Louise Tulip. They have two children.

Poetry

Crucefix has won numerous prizes including an

Eric Gregory Award The Eric Gregory Award is a literary award given annually by the Society of Authors for a collection by United Kingdom poets under the age of 30. The award was founded in 1960 by Dr. Eric Gregory to support and encourage young poets. Past winne ...

and a Hawthornden Fellowship. Among his several original collections are: ''Beneath Tremendous Rain'' (Enitharmon, 1990); ''At the Mountjoy Hotel'' (Enitharmon, 1993); ''On Whistler Mountain'' (

Sinclair-Stevenson Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd was a British publisher founded in 1989 by Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson. Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson became an editor at Hamish Hamilton Hamish Hamilton Limited is a publishing imprint and originally a British p ...

, 1994); ''A Madder Ghost'' (Enitharmon, 1997); ''An English Nazareth'' (Enitharmon, 2004); ''Hurt'' (Enitharmon, 2010). His translation of

's ''Duino Elegies'' (Enitharmon, 2006) was shortlisted for the 2007

Popescu Prize The Popescu Prize is a biennial poetry award established in 1983.Popescu Prize
, official w ...

for European Poetry Translation and hailed as "unlikely to be bettered for very many years" (Magma) and by the Popescu judges as "a milestone of translation and a landmark in European poetry". An early selection of Crucefix's work secured an Eric Gregory Award in 1984 and appeared in ''The Gregory Poems: The Best of the Young British Poets 1983–84'', edited and chosen by John Fuller and

Howard Sergeant Herbert (Howard) Sergeant MBE (1914–1987) was a poet and editor from Hull and the publisher of Britain's oldest independent poetry magazine ''Outposts''. He was appointed MBE in 1978 for services to literature. He edited nearly 60 antholog ...

. His first book, ''Beneath Tremendous Rain'' (Enitharmon, 1990) was published two years after he had been featured by Peter Forbes in a "New British Poets" edition of ''

Poetry Review ''The Poetry Review'' is the magazine of The Poetry Society, edited by the poet Wayne Holloway-Smith. Founded in 1912, shortly after the establishment of the Society, previous editors have included poets Muriel Spark, Adrian Henri, Andrew Mo ...

''. This collection contains his elegy for his friend, the poet and food writer, Jeremy Round, as well as the four-part poem "Water Music" and an extended meditation on language, love and history titled "Rosetta". For Herbert Lomas the book showed "Great intelligence and subtlety . . . clearly an outstanding talent from whom great things can be expected".

Anne Stevenson Anne Katharine Stevenson (January 3, 1933 – September 14, 2020) was an American-British poet and writer and recipient of a Lannan Literary Award. Life Stevenson was the first daughter of Louise Destler Stevenson and philosopher Charles Ste ...

wrote: "Poetry these days, often feels obliged to place conscience over art and make language work for precision, not complexity. In Martyn Crucefix's first collection, something else happens . . . daring to break with secular convention, Crucefix will become a real artist". During a Hawthornden Fellowship in 1990, Crucefix completed the long poem, "At The Mountjoy Hotel", which went on to win second prize in the Arvon Poetry Competition 1991 (the poem was approvingly judged “controversial” by

Selima Hill Selima Hill (born 13 October 1945) is a British poet. She has published twenty poetry collections since 1984. Her 1997 collection, ''Violet'', was shortlisted for the most important British poetry awards: the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry ...

, one of the selection panel that also included

Andrew Motion Sir Andrew Peter Motion (born 26 October 1952) is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and a ...

) and was published as a short-run pamphlet by Enitharmon in 1993. It was also included in Crucefix's second collection, ''On Whistler Mountain'' (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), opening the book which also contained a second long narrative poem, "On Whistler Mountain". This second piece carries the dates New Year 1991 – New Year 1993 and splices putative personal events with material from the

First Gulf War The Gulf War (1990–1991) was an armed conflict between Iraq and a multinational military coalition led by the United States, triggered by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Persian Gulf War may also refer to: * Shatt al-Arab conflict ...

, in particular the "turkey-shoot" of the US air attack on Iraqi forces on the highway north of

Al Jahra Al Jahra () is a city and area located west of the centre of Kuwait City in Kuwait. Al Jahra is the capital of the Al Jahra Governorate of Kuwait as well as the surrounding Al Jahra District which is agriculturally based. Encyclopædia Britanni ...

Tony Harrison Tony Harrison (born 30 April 1937) is an English poet, translator and playwright. He was born in Beeston, Leeds and he received his education in Classics from Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University. He is one of Britain's foremost verse ...

's poem "A Cold Coming" (1991) refers to the same incident. ''Poetry Review'' thought the book proved Crucefix "one of the most mature voices of the 1990s" and it was praised by Tim Liardet: "Crucefix is at his best, bringing physical truths faithfully into an intense focus whilst remaining alive to their more outlandish implications, their capacity for dream-making . . . . tendering poems of love and desire with great delicacy of gesture and movement . . . blending an earthy sensuality with fine cerebral observation".

Alan Brownjohn Alan Charles Brownjohn (28 July 1931 – 23 February 2024) was an English poet and novelist. He also worked as a teacher, lecturer, critic and broadcaster. Life and work Alan Charles Brownjohn was born in London on 28 July 1931. He was educated ...

, writing in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' characterised it as a "substantial and rewarding collection . . . highly wrought, ambitious, thoughtful". A third collection, ''A Madder Ghost'' (Enitharmon, 1997), drew on material unearthed in genealogical research ten years earlier. This had revealed that Crucefix's ancestors to be of

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

origins, fleeing France in the 1780s to settle in

Spitalfields Spitalfields () is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in East London and situated in the East End of London, East End. Spitalfields is formed around Commercial Street, London, Commercial Stre ...

, London, to continue the family trade of clock-making. The book's tripartite structure opens and closes with sequences of fluent, lightly punctuated lyrics in which he explores the anxieties and anticipated pleasures of fatherhood, from conception through the first year of his son's life. Genealogical material forms the middle section and looks to the past for identity, continuity and new ways of understanding the present in a ''tour de force'' of narrative interweaving that Vrona Groarke described as "a brave experiment . . . allowing two languages distanced by history and syntax, to swim together in single poems". The book was praised by

: "It is rare these days to find a book of poems that is so focused, so carefully shaped and so moving". Kathryn Maris also praised it as "urgent, heartfelt, controlled and masterful" and

Gillian Allnutt Gillian Allnutt (born 15 January 1949) is an English poet, author of 9 collections and recipient of several prizes including the 2016 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Life Allnutt was born in London, but was educated at La Sagesse School in New ...

thought the poems timely in their engagement with "proactive fatherhood" in ways that were "tender, humorous and . . . profound".

Original poetry collections

* ''Between a Drowning Man'' (2023, Salt Publishing) * ''Cargo of Limbs'' (2019, Hercules Editions) * ''The Lovely Disciplines'' (2017, Seren Books) * ''O. at the Edge of the Gorge'' (2017, Guillemot Press) * ''A Convoy'' (2017, If a Leaf Falls Press) * ''A Hatfield Mass'' (2014, Worple Press) * ''The Time We Turned'' (2014, Shearsman Books) * ''Hurt'' (2010, Enitharmon Press) * ''An English Nazareth'' (2004, Enitharmon Press) * ''A Madder Ghost'' (1997, Enitharmon Press) * ''On Whistler Mountain'' (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994) * ''At The Mountjoy Hotel'' (1993, Enitharmon Press) * ''Beneath Tremendous Rain'' (1990, Enitharmon Press)

Translations

* ''These Numbered Days'', poems by Peter Huchel (Shearsman Books, 2019): translation * ''Daodejing'' – a new version in English (2016, Enitharmon Press): translation * Rilke's ''Sonnets to Orpheus'' (2012, Enitharmon Press): translation * Rilke's ''Duino Elegies'' (2006, Enitharmon Press): translation

Poems on the web

* Audio Recording made at The South Bank Centre in 2012. * Two poems from "Essays in Island Logic" (from ''Hurt'') * Three poems from "Essays in Island Logic" (from ''Hurt'') with accompanying essay * "He considers what the young have to teach" (from ''Hurt'') * "Water-lily" (from ''Hurt'') * "While There is War" (with audio) (from ''Hurt'') * "Growth of a poet's mind" (from ''Hurt'') * "Invocation" (from ''Hurt'') * "Ivy tunnel at Kenwood" (uncollected) * "Road" (uncollected) * "On foot" (uncollected) * "La Bastide-de-Bousignac" and "Morning Song" (uncollected) * "Tortoise" (from ''An English Nazareth'')

Critical writing

* On recent contemporary poetry about the war in Iraq. * Review of Sinead Morrissey's ''Through the Square Window'' * Essay on

Boris Pasternak Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (30 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, ''My Sister, Life'', was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an imp ...

's influence on the completion of "Essays in Island Logic" (from ''Hurt'') with three poems * On

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

's ''On Education'': BBC broadcast and the text available at and on YouTube. * “The Drunken Porter Does Poetry: Metre and Voice in the Poems of

," Originally published in ''Tony Harrison: Loiner'', edited by Sandie Byrne, Clarendon Press, 1997, pp. 161–70. * Review of

Michael Donaghy Michael Donaghy (May 24, 1954 – September 16, 2004) was a New York City poet and musician, who lived in London from 1985. Life and career Donaghy was born into an Irish family and grew up with his sister Patricia in the Bronx, New York, lo ...

and Anne-Marie Fyfe * Review of Philip Levine and

Dan Chiasson Dan Chiasson (; born May 9, 1971) is an American poet, critic, and journalist. The ''Sewanee Review'' called Chiasson "the country's most visible poet-critic." He is the Lorraine Chao Wang Professor of English Literature and Chair of the English ...

References

External links

*
Essay on ''Beneath Tremendous Rain'' and ''On Whistler Mountain''
by Michael Peverett {{DEFAULTSORT:Crucefix, Martyn 1956 births Alumni of Lancaster University Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford British male poets British poets British translators Living people