Cluysenaar, Anne

(1936- )

   She was born Belgium, daughter of the painter John Cluysenaar, and came to England in 1939. Her education was at Trinity College, Dublin and Edinburgh University. For over twenty years, she taught literature, linguistics and stylistics in a number of British universities. She played a key role in the introduction of creative writing as a university subject at Lancaster and Birmingham universities (late sixties and early seventies), and Sheffield City Polytechnic (late seventies and eighties), where she also initiated and edited the magazine Sheaf. She was founding director of the Verbal Arts Association, 1983 (now absorbed into the National Association for Writers in Education, NAWE). She helped to develop and taught "In the Practice and Teaching of Creative Writing" at the University of Wales, Cardiff. Now retired from full-time teaching, she continues to undertake commissions and writing or mixed-media workshops. Cluysenaar and her husband Walt run a smallholding near Usk, South Wales. She is a fellow of the Welsh Academy. Her poetry publications include: Nodes (1971), Double Helix (1982) and Timeslips (1992). Some of her poems: "Cauldron Rituals," "Dark Mothers," "Poems of Memory."

   Sources: Parents: An Anthology of Poems by Women Writers. Myra Schneider and Dilys Wood, eds. Enitharmon Press, 2000. 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 Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Virago Book of Love Poetry. Wendy Mulford, ed. Virago Press, 1990.