Eric Mottram
Eric Mottram (29 December 1924 – 16 January 1995) was a British teacher, critic, editor and poet who was one of the central figures in the British Poetry Revival.
Early life and education
Mottram was born in
King's College London
In 1960, Mottram returned to London and took a post as Lecturer in English and American Literature at King's College London. At the time, King's was one of very few British universities to offer American studies, and Mottram was to prove a pioneer in the field. He co-founded the Institute of United States Studies in 1963, the same year in which his tenure as a lecturer at King's was confirmed. In 1973, became Reader in English and American Literature and a special Chair was created for him as professor in 1982. In September 1990 he retired with the title Emeritus Professor of English and American Literature.
Mottram and the Beat Generation
In the early 1960s, Mottram travelled to the
Mottram and Robert Duncan
Mottram corresponded with the American poet Robert Duncan between 1971 and 1986. The full correspondence was published as The Unruly Garden: Robert Duncan and Eric Mottram, Letters and Essays, edited and with an Introduction by Amy Evans and Shamoon Zamir (Peter Lang, 2007).[1]
Mottram as poet
Mottram's first book of poetry, Inside the Whale, was published by Bob Cobbing's Writers Forum in 1970. Mottram went on to publish at least another 34 collections, including A Book of Herne: 1975–1981, Elegies (both 1981) and Selected Poems (1989).
Kears proposes Mottram as a key overlooked figure of 20th-century medievalism, suggesting that Mottram's A Book of Herne 'developed forms of collage that brought the early medieval past into collision with new ways of thinking about poetic form'.[2]
His work clearly shows the influence of the
An interview with Mottram appeared in the London-based magazine Angel Exhaust, along with his poetry.
An interview and poetry reading, recorded in 1982, appears in My KPFA.
Mottram as editor
In 1971, Mottram was made editor of the
During this period, Mottram was twice a guest lecturer at Kent State University, where, along with Black Mountain poet Ed Dorn, he was an early supporter of the musical group Devo, and its founders Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis, whose poetry Mottram published when he was editor of Poetry Review. He also edited The Rexroth Reader (1972) and the section of the 1988 anthology The New British Poetry that was given over to the poets associated with the Revival.
Death, archives and collections
Mottram died 16 January 1995 in London.[3] His archive is now in the care of the King's College London Archives.[2] Mottram's "protege"[2] Bill Griffiths assisted with organising the collection and it is currently being completed by Valerie Soar.[4] Carl Kears notes that within the archive the influence of medieval poetry, especially Old English poetry is apparent.[2]
An article by Eric Mottram: "Notes on Poetics", Curriculum Vitae, Letter and three poems, and the complete Eric Mottram bibliography, are collated in a dossier edited by T. Wignesan, The Journal of Comparative Poetics, Vol. I, N° 1 (Paris), Spring 1989, pp. 37–63. Volume 1 Nos 2 & 3 of the same journal include a supplement to the Eric Mottram bibliography by Clive Bush.[5]
References
- ^ "Amy Evans Bauer", Academia.
- ^ ISSN 0034-6551.
- ^ Calder, John (18 September 2011). "OBITUARIES: Professor Eric Mottram". The Independent.
- ^ "Thank you one and all! - Eric Mottram". thankyouoneandall.co.uk. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
- ^ Bush, Clive. Wignesan, T. (ed.). "From Space to Caves in the Heart: re-creating the collective world in Eric Mottram's poetry". The Journal of Comparative Poetics. I (2 & 3 (Paris)): 47–68.
External links
- Mottram homepage at Albany
- The Eric Mottram archives at King's College
- “There’s nothing more exciting than something you don’t know!” Eric Mottram (in whose case it was remarkably little) An appreciation, with recordings of a celebration of his life, held in King's College Chapel, University of London, 3 March 1995. Also recordings of his lectures and seminars, 1969–70 and 1970–71.
- Eric Mottram Remembered: Poet, Professor and Cultural Firebrand King’s College, London 23 April 2018
- King's Underground: Eric Mottram and spheres of contexts, The Great Hall, King's College London 22 and 23 November 2019
- R. Cook, "Performed Poetics: a two-day event in celebration of the work of Eric Mottram and Jerome Rothenberg". King's College London, 12 and 13 March 2022.