Robert Gavin Hampson
Robert Gavin Hampson FEA FRSA (born 1948) is a British poet and academic. Hampson was born and raised in Liverpool, studied in London and Toronto and settled in London. He is currently Research Fellow at the Institute for English Studies, University of London; Emeritus Professor at Royal Holloway; and Visiting Professor at the University of Northumbria. He is a member of the Poetics Research Centre and the Centre for GeoHumanities at Royal Holloway. He is known for his contributions to contemporary innovative poetry and the international study of Joseph Conrad. Early life and education. Robert Gavin Hampson  was born in Liverpool in 1948. He studied English literature at King's College London between 1967 and 1970 and was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to complete a master's degree at University of Toronto. He then returned to King's College, London, in 1971 where he completed a PhD on Joseph Conrad. Poetry. During the 1970s he co-edited the poetry magazine "Alembic" with Peter Barry (poet) and Ken Edwards and was a key figure in the second generation of the British Poetry Revival. His poetry was published in Cid Corman's "Origin", Alan Davies's "100 Posters", and  in a range of other magazines during the 1970s. It was also included in the Arts Council's anthology, "New Poetry 3" (1977). His work as one of the editors of "Alembic" has received attention in two books by Wolfgang Gortschacher - "Little Magazine Profiles: The Little Magazines in Great Britain, 1939-1993" (University of Salzburg, 1993) and "Contemporary Views on the Little Magazine Scene" (Poetry Salzburg, 2000)- and, more recently, in an interview (with Ken Edwards) by Sophie Seita in the magazine "mimeo mimeo" (2014). This has now been republished as 'transatlantic axis of "alembic"' in "Jacket2". His best-known  work is probably his early long-poem, "Seaport" (Pushtika, 1995; Shearsman, 2008), which has been written about by Peter Barry, Andrew Duncan, Amy Cutler, Neal Alexander and others. Barry's extended analysis of "Seaport" begins by noting its 'extensive use of "incorporated data" of various kinds', ranging from various literary sources (including works by Defoe, Melville, Hawthorne and Conrad) to 'historical accounts of the growth and development of the port, of the history of race relations in the city, newspaper accounts of local events and local guidebooks' ("Contemporary British Poetry and the City", p.159). He concludes by describing this long  poem as 'a large-scale vehicle of surprising flexibility which can accommodate the overtly political, the archival-historical and radically pared-down versions of poetry's more familiar affective modes' ("Contemporary British Poetry and the City", p.162). Andrew Duncan similarly suggested that 'Seaport' was 'a major work, where the recovery of pure facts without explanatory annotation allows the build up of a new understanding on the large scale' ("The Council of Heresy", p. 29). Cutler argues that, in this work, Hampson 'shows the conflict between the different social typologies of space in the seaport'. More recently, Phillip Jones has included  discussion of "Seaport" in his 2018 Nottingham University PhD, 'Rewriting the Atlantic archipelago: Modern British poetry at the coast'. Hampson's poetry has gone through various stages. The early work explored open-field poetics and what Peter Barry has called 'content-specific' poetics (in 'Seaport'), but also treated text in 'How Nell Scored' (1976) and 'on the trail' (1976). He subsequently explored self-conscious narrative and montage in his Godard-inspired film poems 'one plus one' (1980) and 'handy narratives' (1985); and a phrasal poetics (derived from Lyotard's 'The Differend' and his own critical engagement with the work of  Adrian Clarke) in 'a human measure' (1989) and 'unicorns: 7 studies in velocity' (1989) - and subsequent volumes. This part of his career is represented in "Assembled Fugitives" (2001); some of the critical engagement with Clarke is evidenced in his essay 'Producing the Unknown' in 'New British poetries' (1994); and Clarke, in turn, has discussed 'a human measure' and 'unicorns' in 'Robert Hampson and a Neo-Formalist Moment', his contribution to 'For Robert' (2017). More recent work by Hampson has been engaged in exploring the resources of the sonnet. His poetry has been translated into German, Italian and Rumanian. See, for  example, Wolfgang Gortschacher & Ludwig Laher, "So Also Ist Das: Eine Zweisprachige Anthologie Britischer Gegenswartslyrik" (Haymon-Verlag, 2002), and the translation of the sequence 'Lou Mistrau' in the Italian journal "Soglie" (August 2014). In 2012, his collection "Reworked Disasters" (knivesforksandspoons press) was long-listed for the Forward Prize. In his comprehensive study of the sonnet in English, "The Sonnet" (Oxford University Press, 2019), Stephen Regan discusses "Reworked Disasters" in relation to sonnets by Ken Edwards and Tony Lopez as examples of the contemporary avant-garde sonnet. He describes Hampson's 'serious political focus on global warfare, imperialism, and torture' in this  'linguistically discontinuous' fourteen-sonnet sequence. ("The Sonnet", p. 382).Hampson's more recent work includes 'love's damage', which was published in the Surrey Poetry Festival Magazine (21.05.11), edited by Amy De'Ath and Jonty Tiplady; 'sonnets 4 sophie' first published in "Veer Vier" (September 2013), while "an explanation of colours" was reviewed by Edmund Hardy and Melissa Flores-Borquez in "Intercapillary Space" and "out of sight" (crater, 2012) and "Liverpool (hugs &) kisses", his 2014 collaboration with Robert Sheppard, are reviewed on the 'other room' website. In their review of "out of sight", the Institute of Electronic Crinolines referred to 'The artificial  highs of Robert Hampson's noir on overload' and described the text as evoking 'a knowingly flimsy fantasy of what resistance to all forms of identification might be like'. More recently, he has contributed to Robert Sheppard's European Union of Imaginary Author's project through a collaboration with Sheppard. This collaboration is included in Robert Sheppard (ed.) "Twitters for a Lark: Poetry of the European Union of Imaginary Authors" (Shearsman, 2017). His sequence 'Volupte: 22 Constructions for Ewald Matare' is included in the Spring 2021 issue of "Long Poem Magazine", and the volume "Covodes 1-19" was published in  December 2021 by Artery editions. Some of the Covodes have been published in "Molly Bloom" and "junction box", and a recording of a performance of some of the Covodes (with accompaniment by cellist Jo Levi) at the 2021 Surrey Poetry Festival is available at vimeo.com/556947245. A full recording of "Covodes 1-19" and Levy's 'Suite for Solo Cello' is available at www.arteryeditions.bandcamp.com.In a review of recent poetry, Billy Mills (poet) has commented on "Covodes": 'Hampson folds his multiple concerns into a single nexus with the multiple challenges that confront this ambition for equity that should underpin our society  ... Against which we see the prevailing influence of money and power'. Scholarship. Poetry and creative writing. Hampson taught at Royal Holloway, University of London, from 1973, and was Professor of Modern Literature there from 2000. From 2016 to 2019, he was Distinguished Teaching and Research Fellow in the Department of English at Royal Holloway. He is currently Research Fellow at the Institute for English Studies, University of London; Emeritus Professor at Royal Holloway; and Visiting Professor at the University of Northumbria. He has contributed to the critical discourse about recent and contemporary poetry - most visibly through a series of co -edited books: "The New British poetries: The scope of the possible" (Manchester University Press, 1993), co-edited with Peter Barry, which was described as a pioneering work in the field; "Frank O'Hara Now: New Essays on the New York Poet" (Liverpool University Press, 2010) co-edited with Will Montgomery; "Clasp: Late modernist poetry in London in the 1970s" (Shearsman, 2016), co-edited with Ken Edwards; and "The Allen Fisher Companion" (Shearsman, 2020), co-edited with cris cheek. Lyndon Davies begins his lengthy review of this last volume in the "Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetics" (13 ) with the  observation: 'Most of whatever it is you might look for in a companion to the work of a poet / artist as multifariously challenging as Allen Fisher, this book supplies in spades'. During his time as head of the Department of English, Hampson founded the MA in poetic practice at Royal Holloway, University of London, with Redell Olsen in 2002 and the MA in creative writing with Andrew Motion in 2003. With Helen Carr and others, he was instrumental in bringing about the regulation change which enabled the introduction of creative writing into the University of London PhD. He has regularly  taught on the poetic practice pathway, and he was director of the MA in creative writing for 2016–17. Graduates of the creative writing programme whom he taught include the novelists Tahmima Anam, Adam O'Riordan, Anna Whitwham and Sarah Perry and the poets Robert Selby and Declan Ryan. Graduates of the poetic practice programme whom he taught include Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Prudence Chamberlain, Becky Cremin, Frances Kruk, Ryan Ormonde, Jooyeon Park, Nisha Ramayya, Sophie Robinson, Karenjit Sandhu and Steven Willey. He has also made a significant contribution to innovative poetry in London as the organiser of events and conferences and as  the convenor and curator of two important seminar series. In the 1970s he organised a short reading series, Future Events, at The White Swan in Covent Garden with Ken Edwards and Mike Dobbie. At the end of the 1970s, he and Erik Vonna-Michel organised three one-day 'Saturday Courses' at Lower Green Farm: Bob Cobbing, Allen Fisher and Eric Mottram were the subjects of the different days. (See Ken Edwards's account of Lower Green Farm in "Clasp" and in his memoir "Wild Metrics".) In the 1980s, he organised two conferences on Contemporary innovative Poetry at the Centre for  English Studies in the University of London Senate House, and, in the 1990s, he facilitated the six SVP Colloquia that took place there (organised by Lawrence Upton). In 1999, he was asked to take over the TALKS series that Bob Perelman had established at King's College, London, during Pereleman's year as a visiting professor there. Hilda Bronstein has given an account of the early years of the London TALKS series in "How2" The TALKS series continued for some years at King's under Hampson's direction and then moved to Birkbeck College, University of London, where Redell Olsen  and Frances Presley were co-organisers with him. It was superseded by the Contemporary Innovative Poetry Research Seminar, which he runs with Amy Evans Bauer at the University of London Institute for English Studies. In 2004, he set up the Runnymede International Literary Festival in collaboration with Royal Holloway and Runnymede Borough Council. He has continued to be the Festival Director. More recently, the Festival transferred some of it activities to Central London as 'Runnymede in London' through collaboration with the Centre for Creative Collaboration (c4cc), which also provided the venue for Polyply, the event series run by Redell Olsen , Will Montgomery and Kristen Kreider. In 2010–11, he collaborated with the Palestinian visual artist, Leena Nammari, on a concertina book, "The Long View", as part of the Beyond Text project. During 2014, he curated an event series, Amid the Ruins, with Carrie Foulkes at the Daniel Blau Gallery, Hoxton Square, London. In 2017, on the occasion of his retirement from full-time teaching, Redell Olsen edited "For Robert: An Anthology" (RHUL Poetics Research Centre / The Institute of the Electric Crinolines). Joseph Conrad Scholarship. He has also pursued a parallel career as a Conrad scholar and editor with three monographs on  Joseph Conrad: "Joseph Conrad: Betrayal and Identity" (1992), "Cross-Cultural Encounters in Joseph Conrad's Malay Fiction" (2000) and "Conrad's Secrets" (2013). "Conrad's Secrets" received the first-place prize for the Adam Gillon Award (2015) from the Joseph Conrad Society of America for the best recent work on Joseph Conrad. In 2017, he received the Ian P. Watt Award from the Joseph Conrad Society of America for excellence in Conrad studies. Previous recipients of this life-long achievement award include Norman Sherry and J. Hillis Miller. He has subsequently been awarded the third-place prize for the Adam  Gillon Award (2018) for the collection of essays, "Conrad and Language" (Edinburgh U. P. 2016), which he co-edited with Katherine Isobel Baxter. His most recent publication is a critical biography, "Joseph Conrad", in the Critical Lives series from Reaktion Books. Maya Jasanoff describes it as 'insightful, judicious and elegant': "'Joseph Conrad" marvellously distils a lifetime of learning by one of the world's leading Conrad scholars. This is the best short guide to Conrad's life available'. He was editor of "The Conradian" (1989–96) and co-edited "Conrad and Theory" with Andrew William Gibson (Rodopi, 1998). He also edited  various Conrad texts – "Lord Jim" (1986), "Victory" (1989), "Heart of Darkness" (1995) – for Penguin books, as well as Rudyard Kipling's "Something of Myself" (1987) and "Soldiers Three/ In Black & White" (1993) and Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines" (2000). His edition of "Heart of Darkness" for Penguin included the first accurate transcription of Conrad's 'Congo Diary' and was the first to use the 'Carte des routes de portage' (1894), which was supplied to Belgian State Officials for the journey up-river from Matadi, to annotate Conrad's account of the same journey, which he undertook four years  earlier. He also edited "Nostromo" and co-edited (with Andrew Purssell), Ford Madox Ford's "Parade's End" and Conrad's "Lingard Trilogy" for Wordsworth. (A short lecture by him on "Heart of Darkness" is available on https://www.massolit.io/lecturers/119. A longer lecture is available on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ni4qpFdyG4. The lecture he gave on 'Joseph Conrad Today' for the launch of the Joseph Conrad Fellowship in Warsaw in December 2021 is available on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=NeE6Ugg7fEU. And the lecture he gave to PUNO (The Polish University Abroad) on 'Conrad, Colonialism and Africa' in March 2022 is also available on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= CMqUe1YtoYw.) He co-edited (with Helen Chambers) Guy de Maupassant's "Mademoiselle Perle and other stories" (riverrun, 2020), a selection from the translations made by Elsie Martindale and Ada Galsworthy, which were first published in 1903 and 1904 respectively. Conrad was in touch with both Elsie Martindale and Ada Galsworthy about their translations. Hampson was elected Chair of the Joseph Conrad Society(UK) in 2015. He was an adviser for "Hanyut" (film), a film by the prize-winning Malaysian director U-Wei Haji Saari, based on Conrad's first novel, "Almayer's Folly". He also appears in the 2018 TCM documentary , "El sueno imposible de David Lean", an exploration of David Lean's long-held plan to adapt Conrad's masterpiece "Nostromo" as a film <https://youtube.com/watch?v-O2eDIM5XnOU> and in "Sladami Conrada" (In the footsteps of Conrad) on Polish television. In 2019, the Polish television series Chuligan Literacki (Literary Hooligan) devoted two successive programmes to his work on Joseph Conrad. This series, on TVP Kultura, presented fifteen programmes on 'the most outstanding English writers, philosophers and historians', and included programmes on Quentin Skinner, Antony Beevor and others. The programmes are available on vod.tvp.pl/video/chuligan-literacki.roberthampson-cz-1,40566562. Academic service. In addition, he has undertaken various  forms of service to the academic community. He was a panel member for the RAE 2008 and the REF 2014. He was also a panel member for the Rumanian and Hong Kong RAEs. He was a member of the QAA Benchmarking Group for Creative Writing and is currently a member of the Practice Research Advisory Group; the European Science Foundation Panel of Experts; and the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission Advisory Committee. Personal life. His first wife was the Bengali children's writer Sibani Raychaudhuri. In Kolkotta, her early work was published in the children's magazine "Shondesh" edited by Satyajit Ray . In London she was on the Committee of the South Asian Literary Society (founded by Ranjana Ash) and a member of the Asia Women Writers' Collective. She published translations of Bengali poetry, produced jointly with Hampson, in the "London Magazine" and the "TLS"; short stories in "Spare Rib"; and poems and stories in the two anthologies produced by the Collective: "Write of Way" (The Women's Press, 1988) and "Flaming Spirit" (Virago, 1994). Hampson later married the George Eliot critic Gerlinde Roder-Bolton. Fictionalised appearances. He appears as 'a Conrad specialist in London by the name of X' in Jenny  Diski's "Skating to Antarctica" (1997), and he and his colleague Andrew Gibson (Andrew William Gibson) also make an appearance (lightly disguised) in Adam Roberts's 2003 science-fiction novel, "Polystom". Publications. Poetry Critical Work Monographs: Co-edited Volumes: Editions e-books "Sounds Anglo-American: Robert Vas Dias interviewed by Robert Hampson", http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/SOUNDS%20ANGLO-AMERICAN.pdf