Martyn Crucefix

Martyn Crucefix (born 1956 in Trowbridge, Wiltshire) is a British poet, translator and reviewer. Published predominantly by Enitharmon Press, his work ranges widely from vivid and tender lyrics to writing that pushes the boundaries of the extended narrative poem. His themes encompass questions of history and identity (particularly in the 1997 collection A Madder Ghost^[1]) and - influenced by his translations of Rainer Maria Rilke - his more recent work focuses on the transformations of imagination and momentary epiphanies.

Life

Crucefix attended Trowbridge Boys High School, then spent a year studying Medicine at Guys Hospital Medical School, before switching to take a first class degree in English Literature at Lancaster University. He completed a D.Phil. at Worcester College, Oxford, writing on the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Enlightenment and Romantic theories of language. He currently teaches in North London and is married to Louise Tulip. They have two children.

Poetry

Crucefix has won numerous prizes including an Eric Gregory Award ^[2] and a Hawthornden Fellowship. He has published 5 original collections: Beneath Tremendous Rain (Enitharmon, 1990)[1]; At the Mountjoy Hotel (Enitharmon, 1993)[2]; On Whistler Mountain (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994); A Madder Ghost (Enitharmon, 1997)[3]; An English Nazareth (Enitharmon, 2004) [4]; Hurt (Enitharmon, 2010).[5]. His translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies (Enitharmon, 2006) [6] was shortlisted for the 2007 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation and hailed as “unlikely to be bettered for very many years” (Magma)^[3] and by the Popescu judges as “a milestone of translation and a landmark in European poetry”.^[4]

An early selection of Crucefix’s work secured an Eric Gregory Award in 1984 and appeared in The Gregory Poems: The Best of the Young British Poets 1983-84, edited and chosen by John Fuller and Howard Sergeant.^[5] His first book, Beneath Tremendous Rain (Enitharmon, 1990) was published two years after he had been featured by Peter Forbes in a ‘New British Poets’ edition of Poetry Review. This collection contains his elegy for his friend, the poet and food writer, Jeremy Round, as well as the four part poem ‘Water Music’ and an extended meditation on language, love and history titled ‘Rosetta’. For Herbert Lomas the book showed "Great intelligence and subtlety . . . clearly an outstanding talent from whom great things can be expected". Anne Stevenson wrote: "Poetry these days, often feels obliged to place conscience over art and make language work for precision, not complexity. In Martyn Crucefix's first collection, something else happens . . . daring to break with secular convention, Crucefix will become a real artist".

Translations

'An Die Hofnung' ('Hope'), translated with Tim Turner from Friedrich Hölderlin: winner of the Oxford Poetry Magazine Translation Competition judged by David Constantine^[6]

Rilke's third Duino Elegy^[7]

Rilke's fourth Duino Elegy^[8]

'Among the Ranks of the Angels: Rilke's Influence on British Poetry': broadcast BBC Radio 3, 27 March 2011^[9]

Critical Writing

On recent contemporary poetry about the war in Iraq. ^[10]

On Milton's On Education: BBC broadcast ^[11] and on the web ^[12]

“The Drunken Porter Does Poetry: Metre and Voice in the Poems of Tony Harrison,” ^[13] Originally published in Tony Harrison: Loiner, edited by Sandie Byrne, Clarendon Press, 1997, pp. 161-70.

References

1. ^ http://www.enitharmon.co.uk/pages/store/products/ec_view.asp?PID=44
2. ^ Eric Gregory award
3. ^ Magma poetry
4. ^ Poetry Society
5. ^ The Gregory Poems: The Best of the Young British Poets 1983-84 (eds. John Fuller Howard Sergeant, Salamander Press, 1985)
6. ^ http://www.oxfordpoetry.co.uk/history.php?issue=057_vi1
7. ^ http://www.thepoem.co.uk/limelight/crucefix.htm
8. ^ http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=18567
9. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zt5tj
10. ^ http://www.poetrylondon.co.uk/magazines/70/article/mulberry-and-oleander
11. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fvnb8
12. ^ http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100523220131/http://www.bowwowshop.org.uk/page58.htm
13. ^ http://www.enotes.com/tony-harrison-criticism/harrison-tony/martyn-crucefix-essay-date-1997

Persondata
Name	Crucefix, Martyn
Alternative names
Short description	Poet and translator
Date of birth	1956
Place of birth	Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England
Date of death
Place of death