Elizabeth Joan Jennings (18 July 1926 – 26 October 2001) was a British poet. She won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1955 for her second poetry collection, A Way of Looking.

Life and career

Elizabeth Jennings was born at The Bungalow, Tower Road, Skirbeck, Boston, Lincolnshire, younger daughter of physician Henry Cecil Jennings (1893–1967), MA, BSc (Oxon.), MB BS (Lond.), DPH, medical officer of health for Oxfordshire, and (Helen) Mary, née Turner. When Elizabeth was seven years old, her family moved to Oxford, where she remained for the rest of her life. There, she later attended St Anne's College. After graduation, she became a writer.

Jennings's early poetry was published in journals such as Oxford Poetry, New English Weekly, The Spectator, Outposts and Poetry Review, but her first book of poems was not published until she was 27. The lyrical poets she cited as having influenced her were Gerard Manley Hopkins, W. H. Auden, Robert Graves and Edwin Muir.

Her life and career were reviewed in 2018 by Dana Gioia, who said: "Despite her worldly failures, her artistic career was a steady course of achievement. Jennings ranks among the finest British poets of the second half of the twentieth century. She is also England's best Catholic poet since Gerard Manley Hopkins."

Selected honours and awards

  • 1953: Arts Council of Great Britain Prize for the best first book of poems for Poems
  • 1955: Somerset Maugham Award for A Way of Looking.
  • 1987: W.H. Smith Literary Award for Collected Poems 1953–1985
  • 1992: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
  • 2001: Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Durham University

Publications

Poetry collections

  • Poems. Oxford: Fantasy Press, 1953
  • A Way of Looking. London: André Deutsch, 1955
  • A Sense of the World. London: André Deutsch, 1958
  • Song For a Birth or a Death. London: André Deutsch, 1961
  • The Sonnets of Michelangelo (translated by Jennings). London: Folio Society, 1961; revised edition, Allison & Busby, 1969. Edited by Michael Ayrton, Carcanet Press, 2003.
  • Recoveries. London: André Deutsch, 1964
  • The Mind has Mountains. London: Macmillan, 1966
  • The Secret Brother and Other Poems for Children. London: Macmillan, 1966
  • Collected Poems 1967. London: Macmillan, 1967
  • The Animals' Arrival. London: Macmillan, 1969
  • Lucidities. London: Macmillan, 1970
  • Relationships. London: Macmillan, 1972
  • Growing Points. Cheadle: Carcanet, 1975
  • Consequently I Rejoice. Cheadle: Carcanet, 1977
  • After the Ark. Oxford University Press, 1978
  • Selected Poems. Cheadle: Carcanet, 1979
  • Winter Wind. Sidcot: Gruffyground Press, 1979
  • Moments of Grace. Manchester: Carcanet, 1980
  • Celebrations and Elegies. Manchester: Carcanet, 1982
  • Extending the Territory. Manchester: Carcanet, 1985
  • In Shakespeare's Company. The Celandine Press, 1985 [limited edition 250 copies]
  • Collected Poems 1953-1985. Manchester: Carcanet, 1986
  • An Oxford Cycle: Poems. Oxford:Thornton's, 1987
  • Tributes. Manchester: Carcanet, 1989
  • Times and Seasons. Manchester: Carcanet, 1992
  • Familiar Spirits. Manchester: Carcanet, 1994
  • In the Meantime. Manchester: Carcanet, 1996
  • A Spell of Words: Selected Poems for Children. London: Macmillan, 1997
  • Praises. Manchester: Carcanet, 1998
  • Timely Issues. Manchester: Carcanet, 2001
  • New Collected Poems. Manchester: Carcanet, 2001
  • Elizabeth Jennings: The Collected Poems. Manchester: Carcanet, 2012
  • Father to Son: Poem

Selections and anthologies edited by Jennings

  • The Batsford Book of Children's Verse (illustrated). London: Batsford, 1958
  • An Anthology of Modern Verse: 1940-1960. London: Methuen, 1961
  • Wuthering Heights and Selected Poems by Emily Brontë. London: Pan Books, 1967
  • A Choice of Christina Rossetti's Verse. London: Faber and Faber, 1970
  • The Batsford Book of Religious Verse. London: Batsford, 1981
  • A Poet's Choice. Manchester: Carcanet, 1996

Criticism

  • "The Difficult Balance". London Magazine 6.9 (1959): 27–30
  • "The Restoration of Symbols: The Poetry of David Gascoyne". Twentieth Century 165 (June 1959): 567–577
  • Let's Have Some Poetry! (for children). London: Museum Press, 1960
  • "Poetry and Mysticism: on re-reading Bremond". Dublin Review 234 (1960): 84–91
  • "The Unity of Incarnation: a study of Gerard Manley Hopkins". Dublin Review 234 (1960): 170–184
  • Every Changing Shape: Mystical Experience and the Making of Poems. London: André Deutsch, 1961; Manchester: Carcanet, 1996,
  • Poetry Today (British Council and National British League). London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1961
  • "Emily Dickinson and the Poetry of the Inner Life". Review of English Literature 3.2 (April 1962): 78–87
  • Frost (Robert Frost). Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1964
  • Christianity and Poetry. London: Burns & Oates, 1965
  • Reaching into Silence: a study of eight twentieth-century visionaries. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1974
  • Seven Men of Vision: an appreciation. London: Visa Press, 1976
  • "The State of Poetry". Agenda 27.3 (Autumn 1989): 40–41

References

  • Elizabeth Jennings Project. Profile and works.
  • Profile and poems (audio) at the Poetry Archive
  • Elizabeth Jennings Papers at Burns Library, Boston College
  • Elizabeth Jennings archive at University of Delaware
  • Elizabeth Jennings archive at Georgetown University
  • "The Poetry of Elizabeth Jennings", Poetry Nation No. 5, 1975