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Elaine Feinstein

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Elaine Feinstein reading at Shaar International Poetry Festival in Tel Aviv, October 2010. Photo credit Kaido Vainomaa

Elaine Feinstein reading in 2010. Photo by Kaido Vainomaa. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Elaine Feinstein FRSL 24 October 1930 - 23 September 2019)[1] was an English poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright, biographer and translator.[2]

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Feinstein was born Elaine Cooklin in Bootle, Liverpool, Lancashire, and grew up in Leicester.[3] Her father, who had left school at 12, had little time for books, but was a great storyteller. He ran a small factory making wooden furniture through the 1930s. She writes "An inner certainty of being loved and valued went a long way to create my own sense of resilience in later years spent in a world that felt altogether alien. I never altogether lost my childhood sense of being fortunate."[4]

Feinstein was sent to Wyggeston Grammar School for Girls by her mother, "a school as good as Leicester could provide". She wrote poems from the age of 8, which were published in the school magazine. At the end of the war Feinstein's sense of childhood security was shattered by the revelations of the Nazi extermination camps. She notes "In that year I became Jewish for the first time".[4]

Feinstein excelled at school work from this point. She was educated at Newnham College, University of Cambridge.[5]

Career[]

After Cambridge Feinstein read for the bar, worked at Hockerill Training College, then as a university lecturer at the University of Essex (1967-1970), appointed by Donald Davie.[5]

Feinstein married and had 3 sons. As she started writing again she "came to life again", keeping journals, enjoying the process of reading and writing poetry, composing pieces to help her make sense of experience.[6] She comments that she wanted "plain propositions, lines that came singing out of poems with a perfection of phrasing like lines of music".[6] She was inspired by the poetry of Marina Tsvetayeva and to translate some of her poetry. These were published by Oxford University Press and Penguin Books in 1971. Her first novel was written under Tsvetayeva's influence.[6]

"Alive to her family origins in the Russian-Jewish diaspora, she developed a close affinity with the Russian poets of this and the last century."[5] She visited Russia on occasions to research her books and visit friends which included Yevgeny Yevtushenko.[7] She has written fourteen novels, many radio plays, television dramas and five biographies, including A Captive Lion: the Life of Marina Tsvetaeva (1987) and Pushkin (1998). [8] Her biography of Anna Akhmatova, Anna of all the Russias, was published in 2005 and translated into 12 European languages including Russian.[9]

Feinstein travelled extensively, to read her work at festivals abroad, and as Writer in Residence for the British Council, first in Singapore, and then in Tromsø, Norway. She was a Rockefeller Foundation fellow at Bellagio in 1998. Her poems have been widely anthologised.

She served as a judge for the Gregory Awards, the Independent Foreign Fiction Award, the Costa Poetry Prize and the Rossica Award for Literature translated from Russian, and in 1995 was chairman of the judges for the T.S. Eliot Prize.[10] Feinstein participated in the 22nd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in November 2010 and continued to give readings in various countries.[11]

Recently asked in an interview with Alma Books what three books she would save if her house were on fire, she replied, "I'd take my iPad."[1]

Feinstein died of cancer in London on 23 September 2019, aged 88. She was survived by her 3 sons and 6 grandchildren.[1]

Writing[]

Feinstein's poetry was influenced by Black Mountain poets, as well as Objectivists. Charles Olson sent her his famous letter defining breath 'prosody'.[12]

Ted Hughes: "'She is an extremely fine poet. She has a sinewy, tenacious way of exploring her subject that seems to me unique. Her simple, clean language follows the track of the nerves. There is nothing hit or miss, nothing for effect, nothing false. Reading her poems one feels cleansed and sharpened."[13]

Recognition[]

In 1980, Feinstein as made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 1990 she received a Cholmondeley Award for Poetry and was given an Honorary D.Litt. by the University of Leicester.[2]

She has received 3 translation awards from the Arts Council. Her biography Ted Hughes: The life of a poet (2001) was shortlisted for the biennial Marsh Biography Prize.[8]

Her Collected Poems and Translations (2002) was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. She was appointed to the Council of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007.

Prizes and awards[]

  • 1970: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation
  • 1971: Betty Miller Prize
  • 1979: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation
  • 1981: Arts Council Grant/Award for Translation
  • 1981: Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
  • 1990: Cholmondeley Award
  • 1992: Society of Authors Travel Award
  • 2004: Arts Council Award

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • In a Green Eye: Poems. London: Goliard Press, 1966.
  • The Magic Apple Tree. London: Hutchinson, 1971.
  • At the Edge. Rushden, Northamptonshire, UK: Sceptre Press, 1972.
  • The Celebrants, and other poems. London: Hutchinson, 1973.
  • Some Unease and Angels: Selected poems. London: Hutchinson; 1977; University Center, MI: Green River Press, 1977.
  • The Feast of Eurydice. London: Faber & Faber / Next Editions, 1980.
  • Badlands. London: Hutchinson, 1986.
  • City Music. London: Hutchinson, 1990.
  • Daylight. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 1997.
  • Gold. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2000; Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000.
  • Collected Poems and Translations. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2002,
  • Talking to the Dead. Manchester, UK, & Chicago: Carcanet, 2007.
  • Cities. Manchester, UK, & New York: Carcanet, 2010.

Novels[]

  • The Circle. London: Hutchinson / New Authors, 1970.
  • The Amberstone Exit, London, Hutchinson, 1972
  • The Glass Alembic. London: Hutchinson, 1973
    • also published as The Crystal Garden. London: Hutchinson, 1974; New York: Dutton, 1974.
  • Children of the Rose. London, Hutchinson, 1975; Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1976.
  • The Ecstasy of Dr Miriam Garner. London: Hutchinson, 1976.
  • The Shadow Master. London: Hutchinson, 1978; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
  • The Survivors, London, Hutchinson, 1982; New York: Penguin, 1991.
  • The Border. London: Hutchinson, 1984; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984.
  • Mother's Girl. London: Hutchinson, 1988; New York: Dutton, 1988.
  • All You Need. London: Hutchinson, 1989; New York: Viking, 1991.
  • Loving Brecht. London: Hutchinson, 1992.
  • Dreamers. London; Macmillan, 1994;
  • Lady Chatterley's Confession. London: Macmillan, 1995.
  • Dark Inheritance, London: Women's Press, 2000; Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2000.
  • The Russian Jerusalem. Manchester, UK, & Chicago: Carcanet Press, 2008.

Short fiction[]

  • Matters of Chance. London: Covent Garden Press, 1972.
  • The Silent Areas: Short stories. London: Hutchinson, 1980.

Non-fiction[]

  • For the Baiting Children in My Son's School Class. London: Goliard Press, 1966.
  • Bessie Smith. Harmondsworth, UK, & New York: Viking / Penguin (Lives of Modern Women Series), 1985.
  • A Captive Lion: The life of Marina Tsvetayeva. London: Hutchinson, 1987; New York: Dutton, 1987.
  • Lawrence's Women: The intimate life of D.H. Lawrence. London & New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
  • Pushkin: A biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson; Hopewell, NJ: Ecco, U.S, 1998.
  • Ted Hughes: The life of a poet London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2001; New York: Norton, 2001.
  • Anna of all the Russias: A life of Anna Akhmatova. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005; New York; Knopf, 2006.
  • It Goes with the Territory: Memoirs of a poet. Richmond, UK: Alma Books, 2013.

Translated[]

  • Marina Tsvetayeva, Selected Poems. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1971; Harmondsworth, UK, & Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1974.
  • Three Russian Poets: Margarita Aliger, Yunna Morits, Bella Akhmadulina. Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 1979.
  • Marina Tsvetayeva, Bride Of Ice: New selected poems. Manchester, UK, & Chicago: Carcanet Press, 2009.

Edited[]

  • John Clare, Selected Poems. London: University Tutorial Press, 1968.
  • New Stories 4 (edited with Fay Weldon). London: Hutchinson / Arts Council of Great Britain / P.E.N., 1979.
  • P.E.N. New Poetry 2. London & New York: Quartet, 1988.
  • After Pushkin: Versions of the poems of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin by contemporary poets. London: Folio Society / Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 1999.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[14]

Audio / video[]

Getting_older,_by_Elaine_Feinstein

Getting older, by Elaine Feinstein

Radio plays[]

Elaine_Feinstein_reads_A_Visit

Elaine Feinstein reads A Visit

  • 1980: Echoes
  • 1981: A Late Spring
  • 1983: A Day Off
  • 1985: Marina Tsvetayeva: A Life
  • 1987: If I Ever Get On My Feet Again
  • 1990: The Man in Her Life
  • 1993: Foreign Girls, a trilogy
  • 1994: A Winter Meeting
  • Lawrence's Women in Love (4-part adaptation)
  • 1996: Lady Chatterley's Confession Book at Bedtime

See also[]

Elaine_Feinstein_Dad

Elaine Feinstein Dad

References[]

  • Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, 1985
  • Davie, Donald. Under Briggflatts: History of Poetry in Britain 1960-80. Carcanet Press, 1989
  • Lassner, Phyllis. Anglo-Jewish Women Writing the Holocaust: Displaced Witnesses, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
  • Lawson, Peter. Anglo-Jewish Poetry from Isaac Rosenberg to Elaine Feinstein. Vallentine Mitchell & Co
  • Schmidt, Michael. Lives of the Poets, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007

Notes[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Neil Genzliger, "Elaine Feinstein, Poet, Novelist and Biographer, Dies at 88", New York Times, 4 October 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Elaine Feinstein, Contemporary Writers, Literature, British Council. Web, Jan. 12, 2014.
  3. ↑ Carcanet profile
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Couzyn (1985), p. 114
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Schmidt, Michael. Lives of the Poets. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007; p. 856.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Couzyn (1985) p115
  7. ↑ [1]
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Interview with Elaine Feinstein in The Times
  9. ↑ Feinstein biography
  10. ↑ Carcanet Press - Elaine Feinstein
  11. ↑ A podcast of her interview with Robert Seatter is available at The Poetry Trust.
  12. ↑ Schmidt, Michael. Lives of the Poets. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007; p. 856.
  13. ↑ Elaine Feinstein's Poetry, The Elaine Feinstein Page. Web, Jan. 12, 2014.
  14. ↑ Search results = au:Elaine Feinstein, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Jan. 12, 2014.

External links[]

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