Fleur Adcock

Fleur Adcock. Courtesy PoemHunter.

Fleur Adcock
Born	February 10 1934 (1934-02-10) Auckland, New Zealand
Occupation	poet, editor
Spouse(s)	Alistair Campbell (divorced) Barry Crump (divorced)

Fleur Adcock, CNZM OBE (born 10 February 1934) is a New Zealand-born poet and editor, who has lived much of her life in England.

Life

Adcock was born Kareen Fleur Adcock in Papakura, New Zealand. Her sister is novelist Marilyn Duckworth.

Adcock spent the years 1939-1947 in England with her parents. After returning to New Zealand, she studied classics at the Victoria University of Wellington, earning a B.A. in 1954 and an M.A. in 1956.

In 1952 she married poet Alistair Campbell. They had 2 sons – Gregory (born 1954) and Andrew (born 1957) – but divorced in 1958.

Adcock worked, initially as an assistant lecturer and then in the university library, at the University of Otago in Dunedin until 1961. She returned to Wellington in 1962. That same year she married Barry Crump, divorcing in 1963.

In 1963, Adcock returned to England and took up a post as an assistant librarian at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, where she worked until 1979.

Since 1980 she has worked exclusively as a freelance writer, living in East Finchley, north London.

She legally changed her name to Fleur Adcock in 1982.

Writing

Adcock's poetry is typically concerned with themes of place, human relationships and everyday activities, but frequently with a dark twist given to the mundane events she writes about. Formerly, her early work was influenced by her training as a classicist but her more recent work is looser in structure and more concerned with the world of the unconscious mind.

Recognition

• 1961: Festival of Wellington Poetry Award
• 1964: New Zealand State Literary Fund Award
• 1968: Buckland Award (New Zealand)
• 1968: Jessie Mackay Prize (New Zealand)
• 1972: Jessie Mackay Prize (New Zealand)
• 1976: Cholmondeley Award (United Kingdom)
• 1979: Buckland Award (New Zealand)
• 1984: New Zealand National Book Award
• 1988: Arts Council Writers' Award (United Kingdom)
• 1996: Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to New Zealand literature
• 2006: Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (United Kingdom)
• 2008: Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.
• She has held several literary fellowships, including the Northern Arts Literary Fellowship in Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham in 1979-81.

Publications

Poetry

• Eye of the Hurricane. Wellington, NZ: Reed, 1964.
• Tigers. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.
• High Tide in the Garden. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
• The Scenic Route. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
• The Inner Harbour. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
• Below Loughrigg. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 1979.
• Selected Poems. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
• Hotspur: A Ballad. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 1986.
• The Incident Book. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
• Meeting the Comet. . Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 1988.
• Time-Zones. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Selected Poems. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Poems 1960-2000. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 2000.
• Dragon Talk. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 2010.

Translated

• The Virgin and the Nightingale: Medieval Latin poems. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 1983.
• Grete Tartler, Orient Express: Poems. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Daniela Crasnary, Letters from Darkness: Poems. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Hugh Primas and the Archpoet (translator and editor). Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Edited

• Oxford Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry. Auckland, NZ: Oxford University Press, 1982.
• Faber Book of 20th Century Women's Poetry, London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1987.
• The Oxford Book of Creatures (edited with Jacqueline Simms). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy Poetry International.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Poems

• Fleur Adcock (New Zealand, 1934) at Poetry International.
• Fleur Adcock at PoemHunter ("Happy Ending")

Audio / video

• Fleur Adcock (born 1934) at The Poetry Archive (profile with poems written and audio]
• "Sonnets - Fleur Adcock". BBC Radio 4 archive. (Audio 5 mins) Friday 30 May 2003
• Adcock discussing her Selected Poems with Andrew Motion. British Library recording. 14-07-1983 (1 hr, audio)

About

• Fleur Adcock at Post-Colonial Studies
• Profile and analysis, Emory University
• Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery
• Review by Herbert Lomas of Poems 1960-2000 by Adcock in Ambit No 161 - 2000
• Interview with Adcock "Final touch", The Guardian, 29 July 2000
• Guardian book review of Dragon Talk 15 May 2010