James Kirkup - wikipedia James Kirkup James Kirkup James Harold Kirkup 23 April 1918 England 10 May 2009 ( 2009 - 05 - 10 ) ( aged 91 ) Andorra Occupation Poet, writer Genre Poetry, fiction, journalism James Falconer Kirkup, FRSL ( 23 April 1918 -- 10 May 2009 ), born James Harold Kirkup, was an English poet, translator and travel writer. He wrote over 30 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays. He wrote under many pen - names including James Falconer, Jun Honda, Andrew James, Taeko Kawai, Felix Liston, Edward Raeburn, and Ivy B. Summerforest. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. Contents 1 Early life 2 Blasphemy case 3 Poetry 4 Bibliography 4.1 Poetry 4.2 Plays 4.3 Autobiography 4.4 Criticism 5 Awards 6 Legacy 7 References 8 External links Early life James Kirkup was brought up in South Shields, educated at Westoe Secondary School, and then at King 's College, Durham University. In World War II he was a conscientious objector, and worked for the Forestry Commission and on the land in the Yorkshire Dales and at the Lansbury Gate Farm, Clavering, Essex. He taught at The Downs School in Colwall, Malvern, where W.H. Auden had earlier been a master. Kirkup wrote his first book of poetry, The Drowned Sailor at the Downs, which was published in 1947. From 1950 to 1952 he was the first Gregory Poetry Fellow at Leeds University, making him the first resident university poet in the United Kingdom. In 1952 he moved south with his partner Derek to Gloucestershire and became visiting poet at Bath Academy of Art for the next three years. Moving on from Bath, he taught in a London grammar school before leaving England in 1956 to live and work in Europe, the Americas and the Far East. In Japan, he found acceptance and appreciation of his work, and he settled there for 30 years, lecturing in English literature at several universities. Blasphemy case Kirkup came to public attention in 1977, after the newspaper Gay News published his poem The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name, in which a Roman centurion describes his lust for and attraction to the crucified Jesus. The paper was successfully prosecuted in the Whitehouse v Lemon case, along with the editor, Dennis Lemon, for blasphemous libel under the Blasphemy Act 1697, by Mary Whitehouse, then Secretary of the National Viewers ' and Listeners ' Association. Poetry After writing simple verses and rhymes from the age of six and the publication of his first poetry book, ' The Drowned Sailor ' in 1947, Kirkup 's published works encompassed several dozen collections of poetry, six volumes of autobiography, over a hundred monographs of original work and translations and thousands of shorter pieces in journals and periodicals. His skilled writing of haiku and tanka is acknowledged internationally. Many of his poems recalled his childhood days in the North East, and are featured in such publications as The Sense of the Visit, To the Ancestral North, Throwback, and Shields Sketches. In 1995 James Hogg and Wolfgang Görtschacher ( University of Salzburg Press / Poetry Salzburg ) received a letter from Andorra signed by James Kirkup, who had just returned from Japan. Kirkup suggested the republication of some of his early books that had been out of print for quite a while. At the same time he wanted to offer new manuscripts that would establish the Salzburg imprint as his principal publisher. What started in 1995 with the collection Strange Attractors and A Certain State of Mind -- the latter an anthology of classic, modern and contemporary Japanese haiku -- ended after more than a dozen publications with the epic poem Pikadon in 1997. His home town of South Shields now holds a growing collection of his works in the Central Library, and artefacts from his time in Japan are housed in the nearby Museum. His last volume of poetry was published during the summer of 2008 by Red Squirrel Press, and was launched at a special event at Central Library in South Shields. Bibliography Poetry The Drowned Sailor ( 1947 ) The Submerged Village and Other Poems ( 1951 ) A Correct Passion and Other Poems ( 1952 ) A Spring Journey and Other Poems 1952 - 1953 ( 1954 ) The Descent into the Cave and Other Poems ( 1957 ) The Prodigal Son, Poems 1956 - 1959 ( 1959 ) Refusal to Confirm Last and First Poems ( 1963 ) No Men Are Foreign ( 1966 ) ( though was composed in 1966 but was the first in his collections of poetry ) For Old Time 's Sake : A Tree Speaks The Caged Bird in Springtime ( 1967 ) White Shadows, Black Shadows : Poems of Peace & War ( 1970 ) The Body Servant : Poems of Exile ( 1971 ) A Bewick Bestiary ( 1971 ; 2009 ) The Sand Artist ( 1978 ) The Haunted Lift ( 1982 ) The Lonely Scarecrow ( 1983 ) To the Ancestral North : Poems for an Autobiography ( 1983 ) The Sense of the Visit ( 1984 ) The House at Night ( 1988 ) Throwback : Poems towards an Autobiography ( 1988 ) Strange Attractors ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1995 ) A Certain State of Mind -- An Anthology of Classic, Modern and Contemporary Japanese Haiku in Translation with Essays and Reviews ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1995 ) Broad Daylight : Poems East and West ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) The Patient Obituarist ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) How to Cook Women ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) Tanka Tales ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) Collected Shorter Poems : Omens of Disaster ( Vol. 1 ) and Once and for All ( Vol. 2 ) ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) An Extended Breath ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) Burning Giraffes ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) Measures of Time ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) Tanka Tales ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) Pikadon : An Epic Poem ( University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1997 ) He Dreamed He was a Butterfly ( 1997 ) Marsden Bay ( 2008 ) Home Thoughts ( 2011 ) Plays True Mystery of the Nativity ( First published 1956 ) The Prince of Homburg ( First published 1959 ) The Physicists ( First produced 1963, first published 1963 ) The Meteor ( First produced 1966, first published 1973 ) Play Strindberg ( First produced 1992 ) Two German Drama Classics ( Heinrich von Kleist : The Prince of Homburg ; Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller : Don Carlos. Transl. James Kirkup. University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg, 1996 ) True Misteries and A Chronicle Play of Peterborough Cathedral ( 1 vol. Transl. James Kirkup. University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg, 1996 ) Autobiography The Only Child : An Autobiography of Infancy ( 1957 ) Sorrows, Passions and Alarms : An Autobiography of Childhood ( 1959 ) What is English Poetry ? ( 1968 ) I, of All People : An Autobiography of Youth ( 1990 ) A Poet Could Not But be Gay ( 1991 ) Me All Over ( 1993 ) A Child of the Tyne ( incl. The Only Child : An Autobiography of Infancy and Sorrow, Passions and Alarms : An Autobiography of Childhood ; University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1996 ) Criticism Diversions : A Celebration for James Kirkup on His Eightieth Birthday ( ed. James Hogg ; University of Salzburg / Poetry Salzburg 1998 ) Awards Amongst his honours, Kirkup held the Atlantic Award for Literature from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1950 ; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962 ; he won the Japan P.E.N. Club Prize for Poetry in 1965 ; and was awarded the Scott Moncrieff Prize for Translation in 1992. In 1997 he was presented with the Japan Festival Foundation Award and invited by the Emperor and Empress to the Imperial New Year Poetry Reading at the Palace in Tokyo. In the early 1990s Kirkup settled in Andorra. He continued his prolific work and correspondence, notably becoming a frequent contributor to the obituary section of the British newspaper The Independent until 2008. He also had several virtual books published on the Internet by Brindin Press. A great encourager of young talent in all aspects of the arts, he was the Honorary President of Switch Drama Company youth theatre. Kirkup died in Andorra on 10 May 2009. Legacy Kirkup 's papers are held at Yale and South Shields. References Jump up ^ Shields Gazette, 16 December 1939 Jump up ^ http://drs.library.yale.edu/HLTransformer/HLTransServlet?stylename=yul.ead2002.xhtml.xsl&pid=beinecke:kirkup&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes Jump up ^ `` James Kirkup ''. The Daily Telegraph. London. 12 May 2009. Retrieved 14 May 2009. Jump up ^ Clifford Dyment, Roy Fuller and Montagu Slater ( editors ), New Poems 1952 ( 1952 ), p. 163. Jump up ^ James Kirkup. leeds.ac.uk Jump up ^ BBC On this day 11 July 1977 Archived 31 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Jump up ^ James Kirkup ( 1970 ). What is English Poetry ?. Eichosha. Jump up ^ Biographies Archived 10 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine... masthead.net.au Jump up ^ `` Internationally acclaimed poet dies ''. The Shields Gazette. South Shields. 11 May 2009. Retrieved 11 May 2009. External links Poetry portal The James Kirkup Collection in South Shields www.thejameskirkupcollection.co.uk BBC News story on the Gay News blasphemy trial Article 12 May 2009 in The Journal, Newcastle University of Salzburg Press ( now Poetry Salzburg ), Kirkup 's major publisher in the mid-1990s James Kirkup - Daily Telegraph obituary James Kirkup - Times Obituary Obituary by Richard Canning and James Fergusson in The Independent A guide to the James Kirkup Papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Archival material at Leeds University Library BNF : cb13092201t ( data ) CiNii : DA00896108 GND : 118865463 ISNI : 0000 0001 0888 5032 LCCN : n80032703 NDL : 00445772 NLA : 35273508 SNAC : w6d50kh1 SUDOC : 030574110 VIAF : 37053184 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Kirkup&oldid=854334608 '' Categories : 1918 births 2009 deaths Alumni of Durham University British conscientious objectors English - language haiku poets Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature LGBT writers from England People convicted of blasphemy LGBT poets Bisexual men Bisexual writers English male poets 20th - century English poets English male journalists English translators English male dramatists and playwrights People from South Shields 20th - century male writers Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links Use dmy dates from August 2017 Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC - ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Talk Contents About Wikipedia Català Čeština Deutsch 日本 語 Português Edit links This page was last edited on 10 August 2018, at 15 : 34 ( UTC ). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: who was the first resident university poet in the uk
Answer: James Kirkup