George Barker (poet)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other people named George Barker, see George Barker (disambiguation).

George Barker
George Barker, by Patrick Swift, c. 1960
George Barker, by Patrick Swift, c. 1960
Born(1913-02-26)26 February 1913
Loughton, Essex, England
Died27 October 1991(1991-10-27) (aged 78)
Itteringham, Norfolk, England
OccupationPoet
NationalityEnglish
EducationRegent Street Polytechnic

George Granville Barker (26 February 1913 – 27 October 1991) was an English poet, identified with the New Apocalyptics movement, which reacted against 1930s realism with mythical and surrealistic themes. His long liaison with Elizabeth Smart was the subject of her cult-novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.

Life and work

Barker was born in

Battersea, London, and the family later lived at Upper Addison Gardens, Holland Park.[7]

Barker was educated at an L.C.C. school and at Regent Street Polytechnic. Having left school at an early age, he pursued several odd jobs, before settling on a career in writing. Early volumes by Barker include Thirty Preliminary Poems (1933), Poems (1935) and Calamiterror (1937), which was inspired by the Spanish Civil War,[8] and contains an attack on the Spanish Nationalists.[9]

In his early twenties, Barker had already been published by

Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
). He left there in 1940 due to the hostilities, but wrote Pacific Sonnets during his tenure.

He then travelled to the

Thurgarton
being a few miles from Itteringham.

Barker's 1950 novel, The Dead Seagull, described his affair with Smart, whose 1945 novel

ISBN 0-571-13972-8) were edited by Robert Fraser and published in 1987 by Faber and Faber. Barker was partly associated with the New Apocalyptics movement,[13] which reacted against 1930s realism with surrealistic and mythical themes. However, his characteristically independent idiosyncrasies set him off as an individual in his own right.[14]

An uneven writer, Barker's masterpiece was considered by

C.H. Sisson to be The True Confession of George Barker.[15]

In describing the difficulties in writing his biography, Barker was quoted as saying: "I've stirred the facts around too much ... It simply can't be done." However, Robert Fraser produced a biography, The Chameleon Poet: A Life of George Barker, in 2001.[16]

Bibliography

George Granville Barker blue plaque at Forest Road, Loughton
  • Thirty Preliminary Poems, David Archer (1933)
  • Alanna Autumnal, London : Wishart (1933)
  • Poems, Faber & Faber (1935)
  • Janus(The Documents of a Death.-The Bacchant.) [Two tales.], Faber & Faber (1935)
  • Calamiterror, Faber & Faber (1937)
  • Elegy on Spain, Manchester : Contemporary Bookshop (1939)
  • Lament and Triumph, Faber & Faber (1940)
  • Selected Poems, New York : Macmillan Co (1941)
  • Eros in Dogma, Faber & Faber (1944)
  • Love Poems, New York : Dial Press (1947)
  • News of the world, Faber (1950)
  • The Dead Seagull, Farrar, Straus & Young New York (1951)
  • A vision of beasts and gods, Faber (1954)
  • Collected Poems, 1930–1955. Faber & Faber (1957)
  • The view from a blind I, Faber (1962)
  • The True Confession of George Barker, MacGibbon & Kee (1965)
  • Dreams of a summer night, Faber & Faber (1966)
  • The golden chains, Faber (1968)
  • At Thurgarton Church, A poem with drawings, etc., London : Trigram Press (1969).
  • Runes and Rhymes, Tunes and Chimes, illustrated by George Adamson, Faber & Faber (1969)
  • To Aylsham Fair, illustrated by George Adamson, Faber & Faber (1970)
  • Essays, MacGibbon & Kee (1970)
  • Poems of places and people, Faber and Faber (1971)
  • III hallucination poems, New York City : Helikon Press (1972)
  • The alphabetical zoo, Illustrated by Krystyna Roland, Faber and Faber (1972)
  • Homage to George Barker on his sixtieth birthday, edited by John Heath-Stubbs and Martin Green, Martin Brian & O'Keeffe (1973)
  • Dialogues etc., Faber (1976)
  • Seven poems, Greville Press (1977)
  • Villa Stellar Faber and Faber (1978)
  • Anno Domini, Faber and Faber (1983)
  • The Jubjub Bird or some Remarks on the Prose Poem, Greville Press, (1985)
  • Collected Poems of George Barker, Faber and Faber, (1987)
  • Mir Poets Thirteen: Three Poems, Word Press (1988)
  • Seventeen, Greville Press, (1988)
  • Street ballads, Faber & Faber (1992)
  • Selected Poems, edited by Robert Fraser, Faber and Faber (1995)
  • Dibby Dubby Dhu and other poems, illustrated by Sara Fanelli, Faber (1997)
  • The Chameleon Poet: A Life of George Barker, Robert Fraser, Jonathan Cape Ltd (2002)
  • Poems by George Barker, selected by Elspeth Barker, Greville Press (2004)

References

  1. ^ The Chameleon Poet: A Life of George Barker, Robert Fraser, Jonathan Cape, 2001
  2. TheGuardian.com
    . 2 March 2002.
  3. ^ George Barker, Martha Fodaski, Twayne Publishers, 1969, p. 13
  4. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  5. ^ "The cold heart of passion's thief".
  6. ^ Encyclopaedia of British Writers, From 1800 to the Present, second edition, 20th Century and Beyond, ed. George Stade et al, DWJ Books LLC, 2009, p. 35
  7. ^ Rough Draft: The Modernist Diaries of Emily Holmes Coleman, 1929-1937, ed. Elizabeth Podnieks, University of Delaware Press, 2012, p. 252
  8. ^ D. Daiches ed., The Penguin Companion to Literature Vol 1 (1971) p. 34
  9. ^ Stanley Weintraub, The Last great cause. The intellectuals and the Spanish civil war. London : W. H. Allen, 1968. (pp. 79-80)
  10. ^ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/elizabeth-smart-and-george-barker-love-affair-literary-classic/ https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-chameleon-poet-a-life-of-george-barker-by-robert-fraser-9276416.html
  11. ^ Sansom, Ian (2 March 2002). "Master of the red Martini". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2008. Jessica has just given birth to his twins, Elizabeth Smart is busy giving birth to her second child by him, and he is spending most of his time drinking in London.
  12. ^ I Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (1995) p. 38
  13. ^ I Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (1995) p. 38
  14. ^ C. H. Sisson, English Poetry 1900-1950 (1981) p. 243
  15. ^ C. H. Sisson, English Poetry 1900-1950 (1981) p. 248
  16. ISBN 978-0-7123-0540-2
    ).

Further reading

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to George Barker (poet).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Barker_(poet)&oldid=1200942066"