Richard Burns (poet)

Richard Burns (born 1943) is a British poet and editor.

Life and work
Richard Burns (also known as Richard Berengarten) was born in London in 1943 into a family of musicians. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge and University College London.

He has lived in Greece, Italy, the UK, the US and former Yugoslavia.

His first book of poetry, The Easter Rising, was published in 1967.

While lecturing at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (now Anglia Ruskin University) in 1975 he launched and co-ordinated the Cambridge Poetry Festival, presenting international poets like John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Ted Hughes, Michael Hamburger and numerous others.

His poems and poetry books have been translated into more than 20 languages (the poem Volta, presented in issue 9/2009 of The International Literary Quarterly (London) - Richard Burns, Volta: A Multilingual Anthology - into 75. Crna Svetlost (Black Light) was published in Yugoslavia in 1984, Arbol (Tree) in Spain in 1986, and bilingual editions of Tree/Baum (1989) and Black Light/Schwarzes Licht (1996), both translated by Theo Breuer, were published in Germany.

His perspectives as a poet combine British, French, Mediterranean, Jewish, Slavic, American and Oriental influences. On his own work Richard Berengarten says: "I would rather think of myself as a European poet who writes in English than as an 'English' poet."

Berengarten is a popular reader of his own poetry, and a dynamic teacher.

Richard Berengarten lives in Cambridge.

Poetry

 * The Blue Butterfly (2006)
 * In a Time of Drought (2006)
 * For the Living (2004)
 * Book With No Back Cover (2003)
 * The Manager (2001)
 * Against Perfection (1999)
 * Croft Woods (1999)
 * Half of Nowhere (1998)
 * Black Light (1983)
 * Roots/Routes (1982)
 * Tree (1980)
 * Learning to Talk (1980)
 * Angels (1977)
 * Some Poems (1977)
 * Inhabitable Space (1976)
 * Double Flute (1972)
 * Avebury (1972)
 * The Return of Lazarus (1971)
 * The Easter Rising (1967)

Prose

 * With Peter Russell in Venice (1996)
 * Anthony Dorrell: Am Memoir (1989)
 * Anthony Rudolf & The Menard Press (1985)
 * Ceri Richards and Dylan Thomas - Keys To Transformation (1981)

Editor

 * An Octave for Octavio Paz (1972)
 * Ceri Richards: Drawings to Poems by Dylan Thomas (1980)
 * Rivers of Life (1980)
 * Roberto Sanesi, In Visible Ink: Selected Poems (1983)
 * Homage to Mandelstam (1981)
 * Out of Yugoslavia (1994)

Translations

 * Aldo Vianello, Time of a Flower
 * A. Samarakis, The Flaw (tr. with Peter Mansfield)
 * Roberto Sanesi, The Graphic Works of Ceri Richards
 * Roberto Sanesi, On the Art of Hemry Moore
 * Nasos Vayenas, Biography

Awards

 * International Morava Poetry Prize (2005)
 * Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize for Poetry (1992)
 * Yeats Club Prize (1989)
 * Duncan Lawrie Prize (1982)
 * Keats Memorial Poetry Prize (1974)
 * Eric Gregory Award (1972)