Cliff Ashby (poet)

Cliff Ashby (1919-)

Probably the most powerful, spare poet of his generation; recognition of his genius cannot be much longer delayed.- Guide to World Literatue, 1975 ^[1]

Ashby is hardly yet a household name, but he ought to be, at least among those who care for poetry - The Scotsman, 2008^[2]

British poet and novelist, born in Norfolk; he left school at the age of 14 to work as a window-dresser in Leeds. He was subsequently employed in a variety of agricultural and clerical capacities in Yorkshire and London. As a poet he came to light through the legendary^[3] X magazine. In the Vulgar Tongue (1968), his first collection of poetry, was followed by The Dogs of Dewsbury (1976) and Lies and Dreams (1980). Much of Ashby's poetry presents versions of his autobiographical and observational experience of the Leeds area with a compelling unsentimentality and documentary vividness. A dourly humorous disenchantment contributes to the remarkable levelness of tone common to harrowingly personal poems and scathing reflections on the spiritual bankruptcy of modern existence. Plain Song: Collected Poems appeared in 1985. His uncompromising concern with the quality of life is also evident in his two novels, The Old Old Story and How and Why, both of which appeared in 1969.^[4]

On Ashby's Few Late Flowers(2008) Robert Nye says: "He has just published what must be the most remarkable swansong offered by a writer in their 89th year...A sequence of quietly original poems, it is the bittersweet distillation of a lifetime's experience" ^[5]

Bibliography

• Old, Old Story (ISBN 0340109408 / 0-340-10940-8 ), Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1969
• In the Vulgar Tongue (ISBN 0340026855 / 0-340-02685-5 ) Hodder and Stoughton, 1968
• Plain Song: Collected Poems Carcanet, 1985
• A Few Late Flowers, HappenStance Press, 2008.

References

1. ^ It is now almost a quarter of a century since Martin Seymour-Smith pronounced this accolade in his Guide to Modern World Literature in Hodder, 1975
2. ^ Poetry: Beauty in a rare, spare art; 15 March 2008; Robert Nye[1]
3. ^ Michael Schmidt (founder of Carcanet Press, editor of Poetry Nation Review and Professor of Poetry at the University of Glasgow) wrote in The Guardian in 2006 [2]
4. ^ [3]
5. ^ Robert Nye in The Scotsman

References & Further Reading

• The Scotsman [4]
• JRANK [5]
• Carcanet Press [6]
• Supplement, The Scotsman [7]
• Poetry Nation [8]
• Yorkshire Post [9]
• Poetry Library, Southbank Centre, Ashby's poem: Latter Day Psalms [10]

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