The Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse, edited by D. J. Enright

D. J. Enright

Dennis Joseph Enright was a British academic, poet, novelist and critic, and general man of letters.-Life:He was born in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and educated at Leamington College and Downing College, Cambridge...

, is a poetry anthology from 1980

1980 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Mark Jarman and Robert McDowell started the small magazine The Reaper to promote narrative and formal poetry....

, published by 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...

. It might be considered one of the 'last words' from a founder-member of The Movement, with its comments in the Introduction still in an anti-romantic vein, and that 'the editor remains unpersuaded that wit

Wit

Wit is a form of intellectual humour, and a wit is someone skilled in making witty remarks. Forms of wit include the quip and repartee.-Forms of wit:...

 is necessarily evasive in some shabby way or emotionally lowering'. It was reissued in 1995 under the title Oxford Book of Verse 1945–1980 (ISBN 0-19-283188-7).

Poets in The Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse

• Dannie Abse
  Dannie Abse
  Daniel Abse, better known as Dannie Abse , is a Welsh poet.-Early years:Abse was born in Cardiff, Wales to a Jewish family. He is the younger brother of politician and reformer Leo Abse and the eminent psychoanalyst, Wilfred Abse...
  
  
• Kingsley Amis
  Kingsley Amis
  Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
  
  
• James K. Baxter
  James K. Baxter
  James Keir Baxter was a poet, and is a celebrated figure in New Zealand society.-Biography:Baxter was born in Dunedin to Archibald Baxter and Millicent Brown and grew up near Brighton. He was named after James Keir Hardie, a founder of the British Labour Party. His father had been a conscientious...
  
  
• Patricia Beer
  Patricia Beer
  Patricia Beer was an English poet and critic.She was born in Exmouth, Devon into a family of Plymouth Brethren. She moved away from her religious background as a young adult, becoming a teacher and academic...
  
  
• John Berryman
  John Berryman
  John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...
  
  
• Earle Birney
  Earle Birney
  Earle Alfred Birney, OC, FRSC was a distinguished Canadian poet and novelist, who twice won the Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary honor, for his poetry.-Life:...
  
  
• Elizabeth Bishop
  Elizabeth Bishop
  Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...
  
  
• George Mackay Brown
  George Mackay Brown
  George Mackay Brown , was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist, whose work has a distinctly Orcadian character...
  
  
• Charles Causley
  Charles Causley
  Charles Stanley Causley, CBE, FRSL was a Cornish poet, schoolmaster and writer. His work is noted for its simplicity and directness and for its associations with folklore, especially when linked to his native Cornwall....
  
  
• Robert Conquest
  Robert Conquest
  George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
  
  

• Donald Davie
  Donald Davie
  Donald Alfred Davie was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes.-Biography:...
  
  
• Douglas Dunn
  Douglas Dunn
  Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He currently lives in Scotland.-Background:Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. He was educated at the Scottish School of Librarianship, and worked as a librarian before he started his studies in Hull...
  
  
• D. J. Enright
  D. J. Enright
  Dennis Joseph Enright was a British academic, poet, novelist and critic, and general man of letters.-Life:He was born in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and educated at Leamington College and Downing College, Cambridge...
  
  
• Gavin Ewart
  Gavin Ewart
  Gavin Buchanan Ewart was a British poet best known for contributing to Geoffrey Grigson's New Verse at the age of seventeen.-Life:...
  
  
• Roy Fuller
  Roy Fuller
  Roy Broadbent Fuller was an English writer, known mostly as a poet. He was born in Failsworth, Lancashire, and brought up in Blackpool. He worked as a lawyer for a building society, serving in the Royal Navy 1941-1946.Poems was his first book of poetry. He began to write fiction also in the 1950s...
  
  
• Thom Gunn
  Thom Gunn
  Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
  
  
• Seamus Heaney
  Seamus Heaney
  Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...
  
  
• John Heath-Stubbs
  John Heath-Stubbs
  John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs OBE was an English poet and translator, known for his verse influenced by classical myths, and the long Arthurian poem Artorius .- Biography :...
  
  
• Anthony Hecht
  Anthony Hecht
  Anthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.-Early years:Hecht was born in New York...
  
  
• Geoffrey Hill
  Geoffrey Hill
  Geoffrey 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...
  
  

• A. D. Hope
  A. D. Hope
  Alec Derwent Hope AC OBE was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.-Life:...
  
  
• Ted Hughes
  Ted Hughes
  Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...
  
  
• Randall Jarrell
  Randall Jarrell
  Randall Jarrell was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a role which now holds the title of US Poet Laureate.-Life:Jarrell was a native of Nashville, Tennessee...
  
  
• Philip Larkin
  Philip Larkin
  Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
  
  
• Robert Lowell
  Robert Lowell
  Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
  
  
• Norman MacCaig
  Norman MacCaig
  Norman MacCaig was a Scottish poet. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.-Life:...
  
  
• Derek Mahon
• Howard Nemerov
  Howard Nemerov
  Howard Nemerov was an American poet. He was twice appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1963 to 1964, and again from 1988 to 1990. He received the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bollingen Prize for The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov...
  
  
• Peter Porter
  Peter Porter
  Peter Porter is the name of:* Peter Buell Porter , U.S. political figure and soldier* Peter A. Porter , U.S. political figure and grandson of Peter Buell Porter* Peter Porter , Australian-born British poet...
  
  
• A. K. Ramanujan
  A. K. Ramanujan
  Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan was a scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada. Ramanujan wore many hats as a Indian poet, scholar and author, those of a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright. His academic research ranged across five languages: Tamil,...
  
  

• Peter Redgrove
  Peter Redgrove
  Peter William Redgrove was a prolific and widely respected British poet, who also wrote works with his second wife Penelope Shuttle on menstruation and women's health, novels and plays.-Life:...
  
  
• Vernon Scannell
  Vernon Scannell
  Vernon Scannell was a British poet and author. He was at one time a professional boxer, and wrote novels about the sport.-Personal life:Vernon Scannell was born in 1922 in Spilsby, Lincolnshire...
  
  
• Louis Simpson
  Louis Simpson
  Louis Aston Marantz Simpson is an American poet. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work At The End Of The Open Road.-Life:...
  
  
• C. H. Sisson
  C. H. Sisson
  Charles Hubert Sisson CH was a British writer, best known as a poet and translator.-Life:...
  
  
• Stevie Smith
  Stevie Smith
  Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith was an English poet and novelist.-Life:Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith. Contemporary Women Poets...
  
  
• Jon Stallworthy
  Jon Stallworthy
  Jon Stallworthy FBA FRSL is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow and Acting President of Wolfson College, a poet, and literary critic....
  
  
• R. S. Thomas
  R. S. Thomas
  Ronald Stuart Thomas was a Welsh poet and Anglican clergyman, noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales...
  
  
• Charles Tomlinson
  Charles Tomlinson
  Alfred Charles Tomlinson, CBE is a British poet and translator, and also an academic and artist. He was born and raised in Penkhull in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.-Life:...
  
  
• Derek Walcott
  Derek Walcott
  Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...
  
  
• Richard Wilbur
  Richard Wilbur
  Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....