Raworth, Tom

(1938- )

   Thomas Moore Raworth grew up in London, left school at 16, then during the 1960s made a major contribution to British interest in the new American poetry by publishing both English and American authors. In the 1970s, he taught at several universities in the United States and Mexico. He returned to England in 1977 and for a year was resident poet in King's College, Cambridge, where he still lives. He gives regular readings of his work in Europe and the U.S.A. He has made a number of recordings and has collaborated with musicians, other poets, and painters. In 1991, he was the first European writer in 30 years to be invited to teach at the University of Cape Town. His first collection was The Relation Ship (1966 and 1969). Some of his most recent publications: Collected Poems, 2003. Tottering State, 2000. Landscaping the Future, 2000. Meadow, 1999. Clean and Well Lit, 1996. Some of his poems: "Bolivia: Another End of Ace," "Eternal Sections," "My Face is My Own, I Thought," "Sentenced to Death," "South America," "The Empty Pain-Killer Bottles," "Wedding Day."

   Sources: Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. English and American Surrealist Poetry. Edward B Germain, ed. Penguin Books, 1978. Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 2. Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris, eds. University of California Press, 1998. 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 New British Poetry, 1968-88. Gillian Allnutt, Fred D'Aguiar and Ken Edwards, eds. Grafton Books, 1989. The Tom Raworth Home Page (http://tomraworth.com/biblio.html). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).