Jon Stallworthy (born 18 January 1935 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

) FBA

British Academy

The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

 FRSL

Royal Society of Literature

The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

 is Professor Emeritus

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of English

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

 at the University of 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...

. He is also a Fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

 and (twice) Acting President of Wolfson College

Wolfson College, Oxford

Wolfson College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with over sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research and junior research fellows. It caters to a wide range of...

, a poet, and literary critic.

Stallworthy's parents, John Arthur and Margaret Stallworthy, were from New Zealand and moved to England in 1934. Stallworthy started writing poems when he was only seven years old. He was educated at the Dragon School

Dragon School

The Dragon School is a British coeducational, preparatory school in the city of Oxford, founded in 1877 as the Oxford Preparatory School, or OPS. It is primarily known as a boarding school, although it also takes day pupils...

, Rugby School

Rugby School

Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...

 and at Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

, where he won the Newdigate prize

Newdigate prize

Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded by Sir Roger Newdigate, Bt in the 18th century...

. His works include seven volumes of poetry, and biography|biographies of Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...

 and Louis MacNeice

Louis MacNeice

Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...

. He has edited several anthologies and is particularly known for his work on war poetry.

While researching the local history of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 Stallworthy discovered an obscure volume entitled Early Northern Wairoa written by his great-grandfather, John Stallworthy (1854-1923), in 1916. From this book he learned that his great-great-grandfather, George Stallworthy (1809-1859), had left his birthplace of Preston Bissett in Buckinghamshire, England, for the Marquesas as a missionary. This discovery led in turn to him finding family-related letters in the archives of the London Missionary Society

London Missionary Society

The London Missionary Society was a non-denominational missionary society formed in England in 1795 by evangelical Anglicans and Nonconformists, largely Congregationalist in outlook, with missions in the islands of the South Pacific and Africa...

. Stallworthy's book A Familiar Tree (Oxford University Press, 1978) is a collection of poetry inspired by events depicted in these documents. Singing School is an autobiography which emphasises Stallworthy's development as a poet.

Stallworthy wrote a short summary of war poetry in the introductory chapter to the Oxford Book of War Poetry (Edited by Jon Stallworthy, Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Oxford 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...

, 1984).

Published works

• The Astronomy of Love, by Jon Stallworthy. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961)
• Out of Bounds, by Jon Sallworthy. (1963)
• Between the Lines: W. B. Yeat's Poetry in the Making, by Jon Stallworthy. (1963)
• Yeats: Last poems, a casebook, by Jon Stallworthy. (London: Macmillan, 1968)
• Root and Branch, by Jon Stallworthy. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969)
• Positives, by Jon Stallworthy. (1969)
• Vision and Revision in Yeat's Last Poems, by Jon Stallworthy. (1969)
• Five Centuries of Polish Poetry, 1450-1970, by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer; 2nd edition with new poems translated in collaboration with Jon Stallworthy. (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) ISBN 0-19-211298-8
• The Twelve, and Other Poems, by Alexander Blok; translated from Russian by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970)
• Wilfred Owen, by Jon Stallworthy. (London: Oxford University Press, 1974) ISBN 0-19-211719-X
• Hand in Hand, by Jon Stallworthy. (1974)
• The Apple Barrel, by Jon Stallworthy. (1974)
• A Book of Love Poetry, edited by Jon Stallworthy. (1974)
• A Familiar Tree, by Jon Stallworthy; drawings by David Gentleman. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978) ISBN 0-19-520050-0
• Selected Poems, by Boris Pasternak; translated from Russian by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983) ISBN 0-393-01819-9
• The Complete Poems and Fragments, by Wilfred Owen; edited by Jon Stallworthy. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984) ISBN 0-393-01830-X
• The Oxford Book of War Poetry, chosen and edited by Jon Stallworthy. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1984) ISBN 0-19-214125-2
• The Anzac Sonata: new and selected poems, by Jon Stallworthy. (London: Chatto & Windus; New York: W. W. Norton, 1986) ISBN 0-393-02449-0
• Louis MacNeice, by Jon Stallworthy. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995) ISBN 0-393-03776-2
• The Guest from the Future, by Jon Stallworthy. (Carcanet Press, 1995) ISBN 1-85754-132-4
• The Norton Anthology of Poetry, edited by Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996) ISBN 0-393-96820-0
• Rounding the Horn: Collected Poems, by Jon Stallworthy. (Carcanet Press, 1998) ISBN 1-85754-163-4
• Singing School: The Making of a Poet, by Jon Stallworthy. (John Murray, 1998) ISBN 0-7195-5715-1
• The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 2C, The Twentieth Century, edited by Jon Stallworthy; M. H. Abrams, general editor; Stephen Greenblatt, associate editor. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000) ISBN 0-393-97570-3
• Great Poets of World War I: poetry from the great war, by Jon Stallworthy. (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2002) ISBN 0-7867-1098-5
• Body Language, by Jon Stallworthy. (Carcanet Press, 2004) ISBN 1-85754-746-2

External links

• "Poetry: Jon Stallworthy", Tower Poetry, June 2004. (Retrieved September 5, 2006)