Poetry
He wrote a number of works on the war poetry of World War I. He was known also as editor of the literary magazine Stand, which he founded in 1952, and which he continued to edit (with a hiatus from 1957 to 1960) until his death.
His first poetry collection, The Peaceable Kingdom was published in 1954. This was followed by several more. The Lens Breakers was published by Sinclair Stevenson in 1992. He edited several anthologies and books of criticism, most notably on the poets of the First World War. He lectured and taught widely, both in Britain and abroad (in among other places the USA, Israel, and Japan).
He began an association with the University of Leeds in 1958, when he was awarded, as a mature student, a two-year Gregory Fellowship, and the archives of "Stand" are now at the university. He moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1965, where he lived until his death.
He was working with Cargo Press on his collection Testament Without Breath at the time of his death in November 1997.
Read more about this topic: Jon Silkin
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
““Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old lottery-office keepers—ask any man among ‘em what my poetry has done for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum. If he’s an honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of Slum—mark that!”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“A story of particular facts is a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be beautiful; poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which it distorts.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be valuable to instruct ourselves in; we must deduce the lesson on our own, just as with life.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)