james kirkup was the first resident university poet in the uk.
who was the first resident university poet in the uk?
james kirkup
james kirkup was brought up in south shields, educated at westoe secondary school, and then at king's college, durham university. during the second world war he was a conscientious objector, and worked for the forestry commission and on the land in the yorkshire dales and at the lansbury gate farm, clavering, essex. he taught at the downs school in colwall, malvern, where w.h. auden had earlier been a master. kirkup wrote his first book of poetry "the drowned sailor" at the downs, which was published in 1947. from 1950 to 1952 he was the first gregory poetry fellow at leeds university, making him the first resident university poet in the united kingdom.
james kirkup
in the 1960s poetry readings were associated with the great poetry explosion that was happening globally but also particularly in australia due partly to the challenging of the self-proclaimed establishment of university poet-professors led by a. d. hope. a d hope strangely enough, due to strict censorship laws and due to sexually explicit nature of his poetry, was more likely to have been heard than read as he didn't publish his poetry until the early 1960s. i t seems public readings were not the preference of academia at the time, as tasmanian poet tim thorne writes in his personal memoirs,
australian performance poetry