- Derek Savage
-
Derek Stanley Savage (6 March 1917 - 14 October 2007), pacifist poet and critic, usually published as "D.S.Savage".[1] He was General Secretary of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship [2][3]
Contents
Life
Savage was born in Essex and brought up in Cheshunt. He went to Hertford Grammar School and the Latymer School, Edmonton and then a commercial college. He became a convinced Christian Pacifist.
In 1938 he married Constance Kiernan. They had six children.
In the Second World War a tribunal accepted his conscientious objection to conscription.
In 1947 the family moved to Cornwall, initially to a dilapidated cottage in the Heligan Woods and then into the village of Mevagissey. Savage died in 2007, aged 90.
Writing and literary activities
According to Trevor Tolley,[4] Derek Savage was associated with the following "leftist" writers in the 1940s: George Woodcock, Alex Comfort, J F Hendry, Norman McCaig, Derek Stanford. In Cornwall [1] his associates included Louis Adeane,[5] Dick Kitto,[6] Mary Lee Settle, W S Graham, Nessie Dunsmuir,[7] Frank Baker,[8] Lionel Miskin and Bernie Moss.
He contributed many articles, reviews and poems to magazines such as Twentieth Century Verse, Life and letters today and The Phoenix, of which he became European Editor, in succession to Henry Miller. From Mevagissey he contributed many book reviews for The Spectator and Time and Tide.
His 1944 book The Personal Principle: Studies in modern poetry gave his strong views on contemporary poetry.
His controversial critical book The Withered Branch (1950) attacked the twentieth century novels of Ernest Hemingway, E M Forster, Virginia Woolf, Margiad Evans, Aldous Huxley and James Joyce.
Publications
Books
Title page of Winter offering : selected poems 1934-1953.
- The Autumn World. [Poems. With a black and white portrait by Richard Seddon], Fortune Press, 1939
- Don Quixote, and other poems, London, Right review, 1939.
- A Time to mourn. Poems, 1934-1943. London, Routledge (New Poets series. no. 12). 1943
- The Personal Principle: Studies in modern poetry, London, Routledge, 1944.
- Hamlet & the Pirates: An exercise in literary detection, London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950
- The Withered Branch: Six studies in the modern novel. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1950.
- The cottager’s companion, London, Peter Davies, 1975. ISBN 0432141103 and paperback edition, Mayflower, 1980. ISBN 0583128505.
- Self-Sufficient Country Living, New York, St Martins Press, 1978, ISBN 0312712480 (US edition of The Cottager's companion).
- And also much cattle : scenario for four voices, London Brentham Press, 1975. ISBN 0950345954 and, 1993 Harleston : Brynmill Press. ISBN 0907839576. (Broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 4 November 1956 [9]).
- Winter offering : selected poems 1934-1953, Gringley-on-the-Hill, S. Yorks. : Brynmill, c1990. ISBN 0907839517. Edition of 190 copies.
Contributions to books and magazines
This section is incomplete
- Now Magazine, Autumn 1940 - Tribunal Statement [4]
- "Testament of a Conscientious Objector". In: Simmons, Clifford, The Objectors, Isle of Man, Times Press, 1965. pp. 82–122.
Lyrics of musical works by John Douglas Turner
- Dirtying My Thing, c 1970
- Your Mother Thinks I’m a Hoodlum, c 1970 [10]
References
- ^ a b Most of the information in this article is from the Guardian obituary, cited above. The list of publications is from the British Library and Cornwall County Library catalogues.
- ^ Anglican Pacifist Fellowship website (No reference to Savage)
- ^ The Times, Thursday, 15 Dec 1960; pg. 11; Issue 54955; col E: Letter to the Editor: "Christian Pacifism" D. S. SAVAGE as General Secretary of the APF.
- ^ a b The Poetry of the Forties in Britain by A. Trevor Tolley, Manchester University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-7190-1708-4, Chapter 4: Keeping Left, pp.55-65 - on GoogleBooks
- ^ Louis Adeane: Poet, author of The night loves us : thirty-two poems, 1946 .
- ^ Dick Kitto: a poet and author of Composting : the cheap and natural way to make your garden grow, Thorsons, 1978.
- ^ Nessie Dunsmuir: Poet, author of Nessie Dunsmuir’s seven poems, [drawing by W.S. Graham], 1985. She was Agnes Kilpatrick Dunsmuir (1909-1999), and the wife of W S Graham
- ^ Frank Baker: Novelist, author of Allanayr, 1941 and several other novels held by the British Library.
- ^ The Times, Saturday, 3 Nov 1956; pg. 4; Issue 53679; col C: "B.B.C. Programmes For The Weekend: Tomorrow."
- ^ The British Library catalogue identifies the author of these scores, John Douglas Turner, with the author of
- Book of Thomas the Contender, from Codex II of the Cairo gnostic library from Nag Hammadi (CG II, 7), the Coptic text, with translation and commentary: 1975
- Gnosticism and later platonism (Conference proceedings)
- The Nag Hammadi library after fifty years: proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature commemoration, ed John D. Turner and Anne McGuire: 1997
- Platonisms: ancient, modern, and postmodern, ed Kevin Corrigan and John D. Turner: 2007
Categories:- 1917 births
- 2007 deaths
- English Christian pacifists
- British conscientious objectors
- English literary critics
- Literary critics of English
- People from Cheshunt
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