David Wright (poet)
Encyclopedia
David John Murray Wright (1920–1994) was an author and "an acclaimed South African-born poet".
, South Africa
23 February 1920 of normal hearing.
He contracted scarlet fever
at age 7, and was deafened as a result of the disease. He emigrated to England
at the age of 14, where he was enrolled in the Northampton School for the Deaf. He studied at Oriel College, Oxford
, and graduated in 1942.
His first work, a poem entitled Eton Hall, was published in 1942-1943 in the journal Oxford Poetry
.
He became a freelance writer in 1947 after working on the Sunday Times
newspaper for five years. He edited the literary magazine Nimbus
from 1955-56 during which time he published 19 poems, sent to him by Patrick Swift
, by Patrick Kavanagh
. Antoinette Quinn in Kavanagh's biography: "Publication there was to prove a turning point…The publication of his next volume of verse, Come Dance with Kitty Stobling, was to be directly linked to the mini-collection in Nimbus, and his Collected Poems (1964)...". He co-founded the quarterly literary review 'X' magazine
which he co-edited from 1959-1962. His work includes three books about Portugal
written with Patrick Swift
, his co-founder and co-editor of X
. He translated The Canterbury Tales
and Beowulf
. He penned an autobiography in 1969, and a biography about a fellow South African poet, Roy Campbell
, in 1961. He also edited a number of publications throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Wright was not reticent about his deafness, and his autobiography, Deafness: A Personal Account(1969), is often used to give hearing people an insight into an experience they might not easily imagine.
In 1951, he married Philippa ("Pippa") Reid (d. 1985); and Oonagh Swift in 1987. Wright lived in Braithwaite
, just outside Keswick
, in the Lake District
of England, and became good friends with Norman Nicholson
, a fellow poet, and his wife, often visiting each other.
Wright died of cancer
in Waldron, East Sussex, 28 August 1994.
Biography
Wright was born in JohannesburgJohannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
23 February 1920 of normal hearing.
He contracted scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...
at age 7, and was deafened as a result of the disease. He emigrated to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
at the age of 14, where he was enrolled in the Northampton School for the Deaf. He studied at Oriel College, Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, and graduated in 1942.
His first work, a poem entitled Eton Hall, was published in 1942-1943 in the journal Oxford Poetry
Oxford Poetry
Oxford Poetry is a literary magazine based in Oxford, England. It is currently edited by Hamid Khanbhai and Thomas A Richards.Founded in 1910 by Basil Blackwell, its editors have included Dorothy L...
.
He became a freelance writer in 1947 after working on the Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
newspaper for five years. He edited the literary magazine Nimbus
Nimbus (literary magazine)
Nimbus, "A Magazine of Literature, the Arts, and New Ideas", was a literary magazine co-founded in London in 1951 by Martin Green and Tristram Hull.- History :...
from 1955-56 during which time he published 19 poems, sent to him by Patrick Swift
Patrick Swift
Patrick Swift was an artist born in Dublin, Ireland. Patrick Swift was a painter and key cultural figure in Dublin and London before moving to the Algarve in southern Portugal, where he is buried in the town of Porches...
, by Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. Regarded as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poems Raglan Road and The Great Hunger...
. Antoinette Quinn in Kavanagh's biography: "Publication there was to prove a turning point…The publication of his next volume of verse, Come Dance with Kitty Stobling, was to be directly linked to the mini-collection in Nimbus, and his Collected Poems (1964)...". He co-founded the quarterly literary review 'X' magazine
X (magazine)
X, A Quarterly Review was a British arts review published in London which ran for seven issues between 1959-1962. It was founded and co-edited by Patrick Swift and David Wright...
which he co-edited from 1959-1962. His work includes three books about Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
written with Patrick Swift
Patrick Swift
Patrick Swift was an artist born in Dublin, Ireland. Patrick Swift was a painter and key cultural figure in Dublin and London before moving to the Algarve in southern Portugal, where he is buried in the town of Porches...
, his co-founder and co-editor of X
X (magazine)
X, A Quarterly Review was a British arts review published in London which ran for seven issues between 1959-1962. It was founded and co-edited by Patrick Swift and David Wright...
. He translated The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
and Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
. He penned an autobiography in 1969, and a biography about a fellow South African poet, Roy Campbell
Roy Campbell (poet)
Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell, was an Anglo-African poet and satirist. He was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between the First and Second World Wars...
, in 1961. He also edited a number of publications throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Wright was not reticent about his deafness, and his autobiography, Deafness: A Personal Account(1969), is often used to give hearing people an insight into an experience they might not easily imagine.
In 1951, he married Philippa ("Pippa") Reid (d. 1985); and Oonagh Swift in 1987. Wright lived in Braithwaite
Braithwaite
Braithwaite is a village in the northern Lake District, in Cumbria, England. Historically within Cumberland, it lies just to the west of Keswick and to the east of the Grisedale Pike ridge, in the Borough of Allerdale. It forms part of the civil parish of Above Derwent.The eastern end of the...
, just outside Keswick
Keswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
, in the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
of England, and became good friends with Norman Nicholson
Norman Nicholson
Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson OBE, , was an English poet, known for his association with the Cumberland town of Millom...
, a fellow poet, and his wife, often visiting each other.
Wright died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in Waldron, East Sussex, 28 August 1994.
Quotes about
- "His poetry was by turns lyrical, satirical and narrative. Sometimes it was fueled by recollections of his homeland, although he was not politically active on South African issues." (New York Times)
- "profuse, fluent, versatile" and "the foremost South African poet of his generation." The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
- "It is a creative paradox that we owe to a deaf man some of the most striking images of sound in contemporary English poetry." Geoffrey HillGeoffrey HillGeoffrey Hill is an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation...
1980 - "His poetry is remarkable for its quiet intelligence and humour, and the integrity of its style. The tone is conversational, though not in the sense of reproducing a factitious chattiness; rather, it creates the lively curve of an eminently humane mind's thinking and speaking" (T.J.G. Harris, in The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry, ed. Ian Hamilton (Oxford: Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, 1994), p. 589).
Published works
As poet
- David Wright: Poems and Versions. ISBN 0-85635-963-7.
- Moral Stories (1954).
- Monologue of a Deaf Man (1958).
- Adam at Evening (1965).
- To the gods the Shades: New and Collected Poems (1976).
- Metrical Observations (1980).
- Selected Poems (1988),Carcanet Press Ltd, ISBN 978-0856357534.
- Elegies (1990).
As author
- Deafness: A Personal Account (1969); Faber & Faber; Revised edition (October 1991). ISBN 0-571-14195-1.
- Roy CampbellRoy Campbell (poet)Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell, was an Anglo-African poet and satirist. He was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between the First and Second World Wars...
(1961). - The Canterbury TalesThe Canterbury TalesThe Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
, prose translation by David Wright, Vintage Books, NY, 1964, 1986, 1998. - BeowulfBeowulfBeowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, translated by David Wright, Penguin Books, Baltimore, MD, 1960, 1962, 1980.
As co-author
- Three books about PortugalPortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
(David Wright & Patrick Swift): Algarve, A Portrait and a Guide(Barrie & Rockliff, London 1965); Minho, A Portrait and a Guide (Barrie & Rockliff, London 1968); Lisbon, A Portrait and a Guide (Barrie & Rockliff, London 1971).Info:http://patrickswifttravelbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Travel%20Books%20Home%20Page - PS...of course- Patrick Swift 1927-83,Veronica Jane O’Mara (ed.), with contributions on Swift by David Wright, George BarkerGeorge Barker (poet)George Granville Barker was an English poet and author.-Life and work:Barker was born in Loughton, near Epping Forest in Essex, England, elder brother of Kit Barker [painter] George Barker was raised by his Irish mother and English father in Battersea, London. He was educated at an L.C.C. school...
, Anthony CroninAnthony CroninAnthony Cronin is an Irish poet. He received the Marten Toonder Award for his contribution to Irish literature....
, et al. (Gandon Editions, Kinsale, 1993)
As editor
- X, A Quarterly ReviewX (magazine)X, A Quarterly Review was a British arts review published in London which ran for seven issues between 1959-1962. It was founded and co-edited by Patrick Swift and David Wright...
(Barrie and Rockliff 1959-1962). - XX (magazine)X, A Quarterly Review was a British arts review published in London which ran for seven issues between 1959-1962. It was founded and co-edited by Patrick Swift and David Wright...
, An anthology, selected and with an introduction by David Wright, Oxford University Press (1988). - Longer Contemporary Poems (1966).
- the Penguin Book of English Romantic Verse (1968). Penguin BooksPenguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
. ISBN 0-8446-3215-5. - the Penguin Book Of Everyday Verse (1976); Penguin Books New Ed edition (August 25, 1983). ISBN 0-14-042244-7.
- Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy, David Wright ed., ISBN 9780140431230, Penguin Books, 1979
- Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse, John Heath-Stubbs & David Wright, ISBN 9780571084753, Faber and Faber.
- The Mid-Century : English Poetry 1940-60 , Penguin, 1965, David Wright (Ed)
- The Forsaken Garden: An Anthology of Poetry 1824-1909 (1950), Edited by John Heath Stubbs and David Wright.
- Seven Victorian poets, edited with an introduction and commentary by David Wright, London : Heinemann Educational, 1969.
- Written talk : David Wright in conversation with Anthony Astbury, London : Mailer Press, 2006.
External links
- Independent Living Institute review
- UK Universities Archives Hub
- Patrick Swift on David Wright, PN Review 14, Volume 6 Number 6, July - August 1980.http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=7587