Peter Robinson (poet)

Peter Robinson (born 18 February 1953) is a British poet born in Salford, Lancashire. With the exception of five years, he grew up in Liverpool. He graduated from the University of York in 1974. In the 1970s he edited the poetry magazine "Perfect Bound" and helped organize several Cambridge International Poetry Festivals. He was awarded a doctorate in 1981 for a thesis on the poetry of Donald Davie, Roy Fisher and Charles Tomlinson. In 1975 a sexual assault in Italy on his girlfriend - which he witnessed at gunpoint - formed the material for some of the poems in "This Other Life" and provided the plot outline for an as yet unpublished novel, "September in the Rain".

In the following decade he co-edited "Numbers" and was advisor to the 1988 Poetry International at the South Bank Centre, London. After teaching for the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and at the University of Cambridge, he has held various posts in Japan. His most extended employment, from 1991 to 2005, was teaching English Literature and English as a second language at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. He underwent a successful brain tumour operation in 1993 while his first marriage was breaking down. He remarried in 1995 and now has two daughters. In 2007 he returned to the UK to take up a post as Professor of English and American literature at the University of Reading.

Published works

*"Overdrawn Account" (Many Press: 1980)
*"This Other Life" (Carcanet: 1988) Winner of the Cheltenham Prize
*"Entertaining Fates" (Carcanet: 1992)
*"Lost and Found" (Carcanet: 1997)
*"About Time Too" (Carcanet: 2001)
*"The Great Friend and Other Translated Poems" (Worple Press: 2002) Poetry Book Society Recommended
*"Selected Poems" (Carcanet: 2003)
*"Untitled Deeds" (Salt Publishing: 2004)
*"Ghost Characters" (Shoestring: 2006)
*"There are Avenues" (Brodie: 2006).
*"The Look of Goodbye: Poems 2001-2006" (Shearsman: 2008)

In addition, he has edited the poems of Adrian Stokes, a collection of essays on Geoffrey Hill, a co-edited collection on Roy Fisher, and an anthology, "Liverpool Accents: Seven Poets and a City" (Liverpool University Press: 1996). His translations of contemporary Italian poetry include "Selected Poetry and Prose of Vittorio Sereni" (University of Chicago Press: 2006) and "The Greener Meadow: Selected Poems of Luciano Erba" (Princeton University Press: 2007). He has also published three critical books with Oxford University Press, "In the Circumstances: About Poems and Poets", "Poetry, Poets, Readers: Making Things Happen" and "Twentieth Century Poetry: Selves and Situations" and collection of interviews "Talk about Poetry: Conversations on the Art".

A collection of critical essays on Robinson's poetry, "The Salt Companion to Peter Robinson" edited by Adam Piette and Katy Price, was published by Salt in 2007.

External links

* [http://web.mac.com/pjerobinson/iWeb/Site/Top.html Peter Robinson's web page]
* [http://www.poetrykit.org/whoswho/whor.htm Poetry Kit Who's Who]
* [http://www.poetrykit.org/iv/robinson.htm Poetry Kit interview with Peter Robinson]
* [http://www.cortlandreview.com/features/99/06/index.html Cortland Review interview with Peter Robinson]
* [http://www.brodiepress.co.uk/05poetsPR1.html Peter Robinson at the Brodie Press]
* [http://jacketmagazine.com/bio/robinson-p.html Peter Robinson in Jacket Magazine]
* [http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2008/robinson_tlog.html Peter Robinson at Shearsman Books]
* [http://www.archiveofthenow.com/ Peter Robinson sound files on Archive of the Now]