Robin Skelton was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

-born academic, writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, and anthologist.

Born in Easington

Easington, East Riding of Yorkshire

Easington is a small village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England in the area known as Holderness. It is situated between the Humber estuary and the North Sea at the south-eastern corner of the county at the end of the B1445 road from Patrington.The civil parish is formed by...

, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, Skelton was educated at the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

 and Cambridge University. From 1944 to 1947, he served with the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. He later taught at Manchester University. In 1963, he emigrated to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and began teaching at the University of Victoria

University of Victoria

The University of Victoria, often referred to as UVic, is the second oldest public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It is a research intensive university located in Saanich and Oak Bay, about northeast of downtown Victoria. The University's annual enrollment is about 20,000 students...

 in British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

.

Skelton was an authority on Irish literature

Irish literature

For a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to world literature. Irish literature encompasses the Irish and English languages.-The beginning of writing in Irish:...

. He is well known for his work as a literary editor

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

; he was a founder and editor, with John Peter

John Peter (novelist)

John Desmond Peter was an English literature scholar, essayist, and novelist, was born in South Africa. He studied law at the University of South Africa, and English literature at Cambridge University, later obtaining his Ph.D. from Rhodes University.Peter came to Canada in 1950 and taught English...

, of The Mahalat Review, and a translator. Known as a practicing Wicca

Wicca

Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...

n, Skelton also published a number of books on the subject of the occult

Occult

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

 and other neopagan religions.

Georges Zuk, a purported French surrealist poet, was a heteronym

Heteronym (literature)

The literary concept of heteronym, invented by Portuguese writer and poet Fernando Pessoa, refers to one or more imaginary character created by a writer to write in different styles...

 created by Skelton.

Poetry

• Patmos, And Other Poems (1955)
• The Poetic Pattern (1956)
• Third Day Lucky (1958)
• The Cavalier Poets (1960)
• Begging the Dialect: Poems and Ballads (1960)
• Two Ballads of the Muse (1960)
• The Dark Window (1962
• A Valedictory Poem Upon His Departure from Manchester, England, for the New World (1963)
• An Irish Gathering (1964)
• A Ballad of Billy Barker (1965)
• Because of This and Other Poems (1968)
• The Hold of Our Hands : Eight Letters to Sylvia (1968)
• Selected Poems, 1947-1967 (1968)
• An Irish Album (1969)
• Answers: Poems (1969)
• The Hunting Dark (1971)
• Private Speech: Messages, 1962-1970 (1971)
• A Different Mountain, Messages 1962 – 1970: Poems And Photo-Collages (1971)
• Remembering Synge (1971)
• Musebook (1972)
• Three For Herself (1972)
• Country Songs (1973)
• Time Light (1974)
• The Poet's Calling (1975)
• The Limners (1975)
• Callsigns (1976)
• Mystics Mild: Song (1976)
• Because of Love (1977)
• Three Poems (1977)
• Poetic Truth (1978)
• Landmarks (1979)
• They Call It the Cariboo (1980)
• Limits (1981)
• Collected Shorter Poems, 1947-1977 (1981)
• Zuk (1982)
• The Paper Cage (1982)
• De Nihilo (1982)
• Wordsong: Twelve Ballads (1983)
• The Collected Longer Poems, 1947-1977 (1985)
• Distances (1985)

• Telling the Tale (1987)
• Openings (1988)
• Celtic Contraries (1989)
• A Formal Music: Poems in Classical Metres (1993)
• Popping Fuchsias: Poems, 1987-1992 (1992)
• A Formal Music: Poems In Classical Metres (1993)
• Islands: Poems in The Traditional Forms And Metres Of Japan (1993)
• I Am Me: Rhymes For Small (1994)
• A Way of Walking : Poems in the Traditional Forms and Metres of Japan (1994)
• Wrestling the Angel: Collected Shorter Poems, 1947-1977 (1994)
• Samhain (1994)
• The Edge Of Time: Poems And Translations (1995)
• Three for Nick (1995)
• One Leaf Shaking: Collected Later Poems, 1977-1990 (1996)
• A Further Spring: Love Poems (1996)
• Lens of Crystal: Poems (1996)
• Long, Long Ago (1996)
• Love Poems: A Further Spring (1996)
• Or So I Say: Contentions and Confessions - A Happenstance Book (1998)
• The Shapes of Our Singing (1999)
• The Shapes of Our Singing: A Guide to the Meters and Set Forms of Verse from Around the World (2002)

Fiction

• The Man Who Sang In His Sleep (1984)
• The Parrot Who Could (1987)
• Fires of the Kindred (1987)
• Hanky-Panky and Other Stories (1990)
• Higgledy Piggledy (1992)

Non-fiction

• John Ruskin: The Final Years (1955)
• Teach Yourself Poetry (1963)
• The Practice of Poetry (1971)
• J. M. Synge and His World (1971, U.S. title: The Writings of J. M. Synge)
• Spellcraft: A Manual of Verbal Magic (1978)
• Herbert Siebner (1979)
• They Call It The Cariboo (1980)
• Magical Practice of Talismans (1985, U.S. title: Talismanic Magic)
• Practice of Witchcraft Today: An Introduction to Beliefs & Rituals of the Old Religion (1988)
• A Gathering of Ghosts (1989, with Jean Kozocari)
• A Witches' Book of Ghosts and Exorcism (1990, with Jean Kozocari)
• Earth Air, Fire, Water : Pre-Christian and Pagan Elements in British Songs, Rhymes and Ballads (1990, with Margaret Blackwood)
• Practice of Witchcraft Today: An Introduction To Beliefs and Rituals (1990)
• The Record of A Logophile (1990)
• A Devious Dictionary (1991)

Anthologies

• Translations by J. M. Synge (1961)
• Edward Thomas: Selected Poems (1962)
• Collected Works of J. M. Synge (1962)
• Six Irish Poets: Austin Clarke, Richard Kell, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Richard Murphy, Richard Weber (1962)
• Penguin Book of Poetry of the Thirties (1963)
• Collected Poems of David Gascoyne (1965)
• The World of W B Yeats: Essays in Perspective (1965, with Anne Saddlemyer)
• Irish Renaissance: A Gathering of Essays, Memoirs and Letters from the Massachusetts Review (1965, with David R. Clark)
• The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation (1966, with Thomas E. Marston and George O. Painter)
• Inscriptions (1967, with Herbert Siebner)
• Five Poets of the Pacific Northwest (1968)
• Poetry of the Forties (1968)
• Contemporary Poetry of British Columbia (1970)
• Collected Verse Translations of David Gascoyne (1970)
• Herbert Read: A Memorial Symposium (1970)
• Collected Plays of Jack B. Yeats (1971)
• Selected Poems Of Byron (1971)
• Introductions from an Island 1973: New Writing for Students in the Creative Writing Programme (1973)
• A Gathering in Celebration of the Eightieth Birthday of Robert Graves (1975, edited with William Thomas
  William Thomas
  -Politics:* William Thomas , clerk of Edward VI's privy council, executed for treason after Edward's death* Sir William Thomas, 1st Baronet , British Member of Parliament for Seaford and Sussex...
  
  )
• Six Poets of British Columbia (1980)
• From Syria by Ezra Pound (1981)
• Herbert Siebner: A Celebration (1993)
• Dark Seasons A Selection of Georg Trakl Poems (1994)

Translations

• Georges Zuk: Selected Verse (1969)
• 200 Poems from the Greek Anthology (1971)
• The Underwear of the Unicorn by Georges Zuk (1975)
• George Faludy: Selected Poems, 1933-80 (1985)
• Briefly Singing : A Gathering of Erotic Satirical and Other Inscriptions Epigrams and Lyrics from the Greek and Roman Mediterranean 800 BC - AD 1000 Including the Complete Poems of Rufinus (1994)
• Rufinus. The Complete Poems (1997)

External links

• Robin Skelton fonds at University of Victoria, Special Collections
• Profile of Robin Skelton at The Wicca.ca
• A Short Biography