Cameron, John Norman

(1905-1953)

   Scottish poet, born in India and educated in Edinburgh and at Oriel College, Oxford. After spending time as an education officer in Nigeria, then in advertising in London, he worked in government propaganda with British forces during World War II and until 1947. He was the friend of W.H. Auden, Robert Graves, and Dylan Thomas (see entries). He published poetry before the war, mainly in New Verse. His collected poems were published posthumously in 1957. His poems are often built on a parable and a single image. Nostalgia for Death shows the seriousness that is often present in what appears as fun, where he pokes fun at the seriousness of personality idiosyncrasies. Some of his other poems: "A Visit to the Dead," "For the Fly-Leaf of a SchoolBook," "Forgive Me, Sire," "The Compassionate Fool," "The Disused Temple," "The Unfinished Race," "The Verdict," "Three Love Poems."

   Sources: Golden Treasury of the Best Songs & Lyrical Poems in the English Language. Francis Turner Palgrave, ed. Oxford University Press (1964, Sixth edition, updated by John Press, 1994). Norman Cameron: His Life, Work and Letters (http://www.greenex.co.uk/cameron.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). The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse. Philip Larkin, ed. Oxford University Press, 1973. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.