Howard Sergeant

Herbert (Howard) Sergeant born Hull 1914 died 1987. Poet and publisher of Britain's oldest independent poetry magazine "Outposts".

He edited nearly 60 anthologies of contemporary poetry and was himself a poet of considerable talent.

The Scotsman obituary of Muriel Spark referring to her book Curriculum Vitae stated. "The title was precise. A CV is an impersonal account of one's career suggesting progress from strength to strength. It now seems clear that she did love with passion one of the boyfriends mentioned: the poet, Howard Sergeant. Without passion but with great loyalty, she also loved the man whose misinformation had prompted Spark's desire to set the record straight: Derek Stanford. She had hoped, in turn, to marry both men, and both had deserted her." http://news.scotsman.com/obituaries.cfm?id=579612006

He married Jean Crabtree in 1954. She survived him with a son and three daughters.

He was appointed MBE in 1978 for services to literature.

Howard Sergeant was the subject of a doctoral thesis by Bruce Meyer of McMaster University. "Sergeant of Outposts: One Editor's Role in Post-World War Two British Poetry." http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/meyer/bio.html

The Sergeant archive was purchased by Hull University from his widow, Jean Sergeant, in 1998 and provides extensive coverage of the full range of his literary work. http://www.hull.ac.uk/arc/collection/literarymanuscripts/sergeant.html