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Jon Silkin

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Jon Silkin

Jon Silkin (1930-1997). Courtesy Carcanet Press.

Jon Silkin (2 December 1930 - 25 November 1997) was an English poet. He was founder and editor of the quarterly literary magazine, Stand.[1]

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Silkin was born in London, into a Jewish immigrant family, and named after Jon Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga.[2] During World War II he was among the children evacuated from London (in his case, to Wales); he remembered that he "roamed the countryside incessantly" while in Wales, collecting "fool's gold" and exploring old Roman mines.[3]

He attended Wycliffe College, Gloucestershire, and Dulwich College[4]

Career[]

For a period of about 6 years in the 1950s, after National Service, Silkin supported himself by manual labour and other menial jobs. By 1956 he rented the top-floor flat at 10 Compayne Gardens, Hampstead, the house of Bernice Rubens (who later won the Booker Prize) and her husband Rudolph Nassauer, (also later a published novelist). Silkin, in turn, sublet rooms to, among others, David Mercer, later a prolific TV and West End dramatist, and Malcolm Ross-Macdonald, then a diploma student at the Slade and later a novelist. ; his first novel, The Big Waves (Cape, 1962) is a roman à clef of life in that flat, in which Silkin features as Somes Arenstein. All 3 men lived by teaching English as a Foreign Language at the St Giles School of English in Oxford Street.

Silkin wrote a number of works on the war poetry of World War I. He was known also as editor of the literary magazine Stand, which he founded in 1952, and which he continued to edit (with a hiatus from 1957 to 1960) until his death.

His debut poetry collection, The Peaceable Kingdom was published in 1954. This was followed by several more. The Lens Breakers was published by Sinclair Stevenson in 1992.

He edited several anthologies and books of criticism, most notably on the poets of the First World War. He lectured and taught widely, both in Britain and abroad (in among other places the USA, Israel, and Japan).

He began an association with the University of Leeds in 1958, when he was awarded, as a mature student, a 2-year Gregory Fellowship, and the archives of "Stand" are now at the university. In 1965 he moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he lived until his death.

He was working with Cargo Press on an upcoming collection, Testament Without Breath, at the time of his death.

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • The Portrait, and other poems (pamphlet). Ilfracombe, UK: Stockwell, 1950.
  • The Peaceable Kingdom. London: Chatto & Windus, 1954.
  • The Two Freedoms. London: Chatto & Windus, 1958; New York: Macmillan, 1958.
  • The Re-Ordering of the Stones. London: Chatto & Windus, 1961.
  • Flower Poems (pamphlet). Leeds: University of Leeds, School of English, 1964; Newcastle: Northern House Poets #27, 1978.
  • Nature with Man. London: Chatto & Windus, 1965.
  • Poems New And Selected. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1966.
  • Three Poems (pamphlet). Cambridge, MA: Pym-Randall Press, 1969.
  • Poems (by Vernon Watkins & Jon Silkin). London: Longmans Green, 1969.
  • Pergamon Poets VIII (by Vernon Scanell & Jon Silkin). Oxford: Pergamon, 1970.
  • Amana Grass. London: Chatto & Windus, 1971; Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971.
  • Killhope Wheel. Ashington, UK: Mid-Northumberland Arts Group (North Now Pamphlet #3), 1971.
  • Air That Pricks the Earth (pamphlet). Rushden, UK: Sceptre Press, 1973.
  • The Principle of Water. Cheadle, UK: Carcanet, 1974.
  • The Little Time-Keeper, 1976. Ney York: Norton, 1977.
  • Into Praising (with photos by Edwin Easydorchik). Sunderland, UK: Ceolfrith Press, 1978.
  • Selected Poems. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
  • The Psalms and their Spoils. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
  • The Ship's Pasture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
  • Selected Poems (new edition). London & New York: Routledge, 1988; London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993.
  • The Lens-Breakers. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992.
  • Watersmeet (pamphlet). Whitley Bay, UK: Bay Press, 1994.
  • Testament Without Breath (pamhlet; illustrated by Robert McNab). Cornwall, UK: Cargo Press, 1998.
  • Making a Republic. Manchester: Carcanet / Northern House, 2002.

Play[]

  • Gurney: A play. Tyne and Wear, UK: Iron Press Drama Editions, 1985.

Non-fiction[]

Translated[]

  • Natan Zach, Against Parting. Northern House Pamphlet Poets, 1967. pamphlet.

Edited[]

  • Poetry of the Committed Individual: A 'Stand' anthology of poetry. London: Gollancz, 1973.
  • The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry. London: Penguin, 1979.
  • The Penguin Book of First World War Prose (edited with Jon Glover). London: Penguin, 1989.
  • Wilfred Owen, The War Poems. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy Virginia Commonwealth University.[5]

Poetry of the Committed Individual[]

Poetry of the Committed Individual was a 1973 Stand anthology edited by Silkin. The poets included were:

Dannie Abse - David Avidan - John Barrell - Wendell Berry - John Berryman - Alexander Blok - Johannes Bobrowski - Bertolt Brecht - T. J. Brindley - Joseph Brodsky - Alan Brownjohn - Leon Felipe Camino - Antonio Cisneros - Peter Dale - Gunnar Ekelöf - Hans Magnus Enzensberger - Roy Fisher - Paavo Haavikko - John Haines - Michael Hamburger - Tony Harrison - John Haynes - John Heath-Stubbs - Zbigniew Herbert - Nazim Hikmet - Geoffrey Hill - Anselm Hollo - Miroslav Holub - Peter Huchel - Philip Levine - Emanuel Litvinoff - George MacBeth - Sorley Maclean - Christopher Middleton - Ewart Milne - Norman Nicholson - Tom Pickard - Maila Pylkonnen - Miklós Radnóti - Tom Raworth - Tadeusz Różewicz - Penti Saariskoski - Jon Silkin - Iain Crichton Smith - Ken Smith - Vladimir Soloukhin - William Stafford - Marina Tsvetayeva - Giuseppe Ungaretti - César Vallejo - Andrei Voznesensky - Jeffrey Wainwright - Ted Walker - Nathan Whiting - James Wright - Yevgeny Yevtushenko - Natan Zach

See also[]

Daily_Poetry_Readings_-55-_Death_of_a_Son_by_John_Silkin_read_by_Dr_Iain_McGilchrist

Daily Poetry Readings -55- Death of a Son by John Silkin read by Dr Iain McGilchrist

References[]

Notes[]

  1. ↑ Rodney Pybus, Obituary: Jon Silkin, The Independent, Dec. 1, 1997, Web, July 15, 2012.
  2. ↑ H.C.G. Matthew, Brian Howard Harrison, (2004), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press)
  3. ↑ Jon Silkin, Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Vol. 5. Gale., p. 250
  4. ↑ British Museum, Jenny Lewis, Arts Council of Great Britain, (1967), Poetry in the Making: Catalogue of an Exhibition of Poetry Manuscripts in the British Museum, page 56, (Turret Books for the Arts Council of Great Britain and the British Museum)
  5. ↑ Jon Silkin Page, David Latane, Virginia Commonwealth University, VCU.edu, Web, July 15, 2012.

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