Arthur Peter Riley (born 1940) is a contemporary

English poet This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including the Republic of Ireland after December 1922. The earl ...

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

, and

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

. Riley is known as a Cambridge poet, part of the group loosely associated with J. H. Prynne which today is acknowledged as an important center of innovative poetry in the United Kingdom. Riley was an editor and major contributor to ''

The English Intelligencer ''The English Intelligencer'' was a mid-1960s little magazine devoted to poetry and letters founded and edited by poets Andrew Crozier and Peter Riley. It played a key role in the emergence of many of the poets associated with the British Poetry ...

''. He is the author of ten books of poetry, and many small-press booklets. He is also the current poetry editor of ''

The Fortnightly Review ''The Fortnightly Review'' was one of the most prominent and influential magazines in nineteenth-century England. It was founded in 1865 by Anthony Trollope, Frederic Harrison, Edward Spencer Beesly, and six others with an investment of £9,000 ...

'' and a recipient of the

Cholmondeley Award The Cholmondeley Awards ( ) are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has bee ...

in 2012 for "achievement and distinction in poetry".

Early life

Peter Riley was born in

Stockport Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt, Rivers Goyt and River Tame, Greater Manchester, Tame merge to create the River Mersey he ...

, near

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, England, and was raised in an environment of working people. Entering higher education "through Britain's post-war socialistic educational policies", he attended

Stockport Grammar School Stockport Grammar School is a co-educational private day school in Stockport, England. Founded in 1487 by Sir Edmund Shaa, a former Lord Mayor of London, it is the second oldest in the North of England, after Lancaster Royal Grammar School, ...

and

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

, where he read English, and has since lived and worked in the UK and abroad in teaching at several levels and other occupations. For nearly thirty years he was resident in Cambridge, where he ran a mail-order poetry book business, and he now lives in

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

Career

He has written studies of

Jack Spicer Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'' won the American Book Award for poetry. ...

, T. F. Powys, improvised music, poetry,

lead mines Lead () is a chemical element; it has symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, lead ...

burial mounds A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. ...

, village carols and

Transylvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...

string band A string band is an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments. String bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and are among the forerunners of modern country music and bluegrass. While being active count ...

s, and has published two books of translations from the French poet

Lorand Gaspar Lorand Gaspar (28 February 1925, in Târgu Mureș – 9 October 2019, in Paris) was a Hungarian–born French poet. Life Gaspar was born in February 1925 in Târgu Mureș, Romania. In 1943, he enrolled at Palatine Joseph University of Technolog ...

. Riley has been an advocate for neglected British poets from the 1930s and 1940s, in particular

Nicholas Moore Nicholas Moore (16 November 1918 – 26 January 1986) was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, whose reputation stood as high as Dylan Thomas’s. He later dropped out of the literary world. Biography Moore wa ...

(1918–1986), and has edited several posthumous books of Moore's. Riley was the co-editor (with

Andrew Crozier Andrew Thomas Knights Crozier (26 July 1943 – 3 April 2008) was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. Life Crozier was educated at Dulwich College, and later Christ's College, Cambridge. His 1976 book ''Pleats'' won the Alice Hu ...

and others) of the important poetry/poetics journal ''The English Intelligencer'' (1965–1968), and editor of the later ''Collection'' (1968–1970). From the 1980s to the 2000s he ran the imprint Poetical Histories, which focussed on brief (4–12pp) pamphlets published on fine paper. Notable publications included J.H. Prynne's ''Marzipan'' and his sole poem in Chinese, ''Jie ban mi Shi Hu'';

R. F. Langley Roger Francis Langley (commonly known as R. F. Langley; 23 October 1938 – 25 January 2011) was an English poet and diarist. During his life, he was loosely affiliated with the Cambridge poetry scene. Life and work Langley was born in Rugb ...

's ''Man Jack''; and late work by the older poets Seán Rafferty and

Dorian Cooke Dorian Cooke (25 December 1916 - 18 September 2005) was a poet, MI6 operative, and head of the Yugoslav section at the BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting ...

. In the 1970s, Riley was an important early promoter of and advocate for British

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...

, and the noted guitarist Derek Bailey was a lifelong friend; two of Bailey's late solo albums, ''Takes Fakes & Dead She Dances'' and ''Poetry and Playing'', contain tracks of Bailey playing guitar while reading aloud from Riley's poetry. Several books of Riley's from this period are responses to free jazz and free improvisation: ''The Musicians The Instruments'' (poetry, The Many Press, 1978) and ''Company Week'' (prose, Compatible Recording and Publishing, 1994) in response to Bailey's 1977 Company Week event, and ''The Whole Band'' (Sesheta, 1972), in response to performances by

John Tchicai John Martin Tchicai ( ; 28 April 1936 – 8 October 2012) was a Danish free jazz saxophonist and composer. Biography Tchicai was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to a Danish mother and a Congolese father. The family moved to Aarhus, where he s ...

's Cadentia Nova Danica. This habit of responding to music in his poetry has continued in more recent work, such as the ''Reader/Author/Lecture'' series (with poems for or after

Syd Barrett Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, guitarist and songwriter who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965. Until his departure in 1968, he was Pink Floyd's frontman and primary songwriter, ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

, John Sheppard and others) and his more recent books concerning music encountered on his travels in Eastern Europe. Riley was the subject of an essay collection, ''The Poetry of Peter Riley'' (The Gig, 1999/2000) and a poetry festschrift, ''April Eye'' (Infernal Methods, 2000).

Excavations and Riley's poetics

''Distant Points'' is a series of prose poems arising from the author's meditations on 19th-century excavation reports of prehistoric burial mounds in the north of England. As Riley himself explains, this particular work is: Commenting on this work, American poet and Zukofsky scholar Mark Scroggins offers this insight:

Selected publications

*''Love-Strife Machine'' (Ferry Press, 1969) *''The Linear Journal'' (Grosseteste Press, 1973) *''Strange Family: 12 Songs'' (Burning Deck, Providence, 1973) *''Preparations: 26 Commentaries'' (Curiously Strong, 1979) *''Lines on the Liver'' (Ferry Press, 1981) *''Tracks and Mineshafts'' (Grosseteste Press, 1983) *''Noon Province'' (Poetical Histories, Cambridge, 1989) *''Distant Points: Excavations Part One, Books One and Two'' (Reality Street Editions, 1995) *''Snow has Settled ... Bury Me Here'' (Shearsman Books, 1997) *''Passing Measures'', Selected poems 1966–1996 (Carcanet, 2000) *''Messenger Street'' (Poetical Histories, 2001) ''note'': this is a pamphlet containing four elegies for the poet

Douglas Oliver Douglas Dunlop Oliver (14 September 1937 – 21 April 2000) was a poet, novelist, editor, and educator. The author of more than a dozen works, Oliver came into poetry not as an academic but through a career in journalism, notably in Cambridge, Par ...

*''The Dance at Mociu'' (Shearsman, 2003) *''Alstonefield: a poem'' (Carcanet, 2003) *''The Day's Final Balance: uncollected writings 1965–2006'' (Shearsman, 2007) *''The Llyn Writings'' (Shearsman, 2007) *''Greek Passages'' (Shearsman, 2009) *''The Derbyshire Poems'' (Shearsman, 2010) ''note'': this is a one-volume reissue of ''Tracks and Mineshafts'' and ''Lines on the Liver'' with additional material *''The Glacial Stairway'' (Carcanet, 2011) *''XIV PIECES'' (Longbarrow Press, 2012) *''The Ascent of Kinder Scout'' (Longbarrow Press, 2014) *''Due North'' (Shearsman, 2015) *''The Fortnightly Reviews: Poetry Notes 2012-2014'' (Odd Volumes, 2015) *''Collected Poems, Vols I & II'' (Shearsman, 2018) *''Truth, Justice, and the Companionship of Owls'' (Longbarrow Press, 2019)

References

External links

April Eye
- Peter Riley's website
Archive of 'Poetry Notes' columns
in ''

''
Author Page
at the ''British Electronic Poetry Centre''

interview at ''

Jacket Magazine ''Jacket'' was an online literary periodical founded by the Australian poet John Tranter, published from 1997-2010. The first issue was in October 1997. Until 2010, each new number of the magazine was posted at the website piece by piece unti ...