Graham, William Sydney

(1918-1986)

   Born in Greenock, Scotland, where he was educated, he trained as an engineer and attended Newbattle Abbey College near Edinburgh. During World War II he worked in munitions in Glasgow and after the war he lived most of his life in Cornwall. He did a variety of jobs-copywriter, fisherman, and auxiliary coastguard-but his main concentration was on writing poetry. Many of his poems use the metaphor of fishing to explore his own inner life. Some of his work is spine-chilling. Over the years he lived frugally on the proceeds of his writing, the support of friends and patrons and small grants from the Arts Council. He was granted a civil list pension in 1974 and died after a long battle with cancer. Some of his publications: Cage Without Grievance, 1942. The White Threshold, 1949. The Nightfishing, 1955. Malcolm Mooney's Land, 1970. Implements in their Places, 1977. Collected Poems 1942-1977, 1979. Selected Poems, 1980. Some of his poems: "Beast in the Space," "Definition of My Brother," "Loch Thom," "The Children of Greenock," "The Conscript Goes," "The Dark Dialogues," "To Alexander Bell."

   Sources: Biography of W.S. Graham (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/Graham, William Sydneycrumey/w_s_graham.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 Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse. John Heath-Stubbs, and David Wright, ed. Faber and Faber, 1975. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Poetry Anthology, 19121977. Daryl Hine and Joseph Parisi, eds. Houghton Mifflin, 1978. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).