Entry tags:
James Kirkup (April 23, 1918 – May 10, 2009)
James Falconer Kirkup, FRSL (England, 23 April 1918 – Andorra, 10 May 2009) was a prolific English poet, translator and travel writer. He was brought up in South Shields, and educated at South Shields Secondary School and Durham University. He wrote over 30 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. Kirkup came to public attention in 1977, when the newspaper Gay News published his poem The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name, in which a Roman centurion describes his lust and attraction for Jesus after his death. The paper was successfully prosecuted in the Whitehouse v. Lemon case, along with the editor, Denis Lemon, for blasphemy by Mary Whitehouse, then Secretary of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. (Picture: Maurice de Sausmarez, Portrait of James Kirkup, Gregory Fellow in Poetry (1951). Oil on canvas. University of Leeds Art Collection P1/1951. Reproduced with permission of Jane de Sausmarez ©.)During World War II he was a conscientious objector, and worked for the Forestry Commission and on the land in the Yorkshire Dales and at the Lansbury Gate Farm, Clavering, Essex. He taught at The Downs School in Colwall, Malvern, where W.H. Auden had earlier been a master. Kirkup wrote his first book of poetry, The Drowned Sailor at the Downs, which was published in 1947. From 1950 to 1952 he was the first Gregory Poetry Fellow at Leeds University, making him the first resident university poet in the United Kingdom.
( Read more... )
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kirkup
( Further Readings )
More LGBT History at my website: www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Gay Classics
I asked to all the authors joining the GayRomLit convention in Albuquerque in October (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Here is the Bestsellers List on Amazon I'm referring to for the challenge:
1) Frog by Mary Calmes