Bewick, Elizabeth

(1919- )

   Born in Seaham Harbour, County Durham, she had a long career in librarianship, interrupted by service in the Women's Royal Naval Service (W.R.N.S.) mostly in and around Portsmouth. She then spent a year at University College, London, after which she specialized in library work with children and spent the next 12 years working in the metropolitan boroughs of St. Pancras, St. Marylebone and Islington, before moving to Hampshire in 1961 to set up the School Library Service in that county. Bewick lives in Winchester, has lectured and written reviews, and has been an external examiner for the Library Association. For many years she ran poetry readings in the deanery under the auspices of the Winchester Cathedral Players. In 1994 she received the "Southampton City Writers" annual award for her contributions to poetry. Her publications (all written after she retired): Comfort Me with Apples and Other Poems, 1987. Heartsease: Poems, 1991. Making a Roux, 2000. Some of her poems: "A Question of Carelessness," "Black My Beginning," "Heartsease," "Love-in-idleness," "Monkey-faces," "Oranges at Christmas Time," "Step-mothers," "Three-facesunder-a-hood," "Too Many Levels," "Trinities," "Wild Pansy."

   Sources: Oranges At Christmas Time by Elizabeth Bewick (http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/poetry/story/0,1669221,00.html). Making a Roux, book by Elizabeth Bewick (http://www.peterloopoets.com/html/stocklist_17.html). Heartsease by Elizabeth Bewick (http://www.peterloopoets.com/html/stocklist_18.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org).