Craig Raine

Craig Raine (born 3 December 1944) is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. Along with Christopher Reid, he is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.[1]

Contents

Life

His father was a boxer who fought for England twice.[2] He grew up in a "bookless" prefab in Shildon, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham.[3][4] He won a scholarship to the independent Barnard Castle School.[5] Of his time there he has recalled that it seemed that everyone else's parents seemed to be:

accountants or surgeons or something. I couldn't say my father was an ex-boxer who did faith healing, had epileptic fits and lived off a pension. So for a while I said he was a football manager. But by the end I was inviting my friends home and they thought he was just as terrific as I did.[6]

Raine has commented on his education: "At Barnard Castle I was taught by an absolutely remarkable English teacher, Arnold Snodgrass, a friend of WH Auden at Oxford [and later Robert Graves]. There was no question that he altered my mindset on things and made me very critical."[7][8]

Raine received his university education at Exeter College, University of Oxford, where he was:

thrilled by beer at one and threepence a pint, the sexual revolution was good and I was obsessed with literature.[9][10]

He taught at Oxford and followed a literary career as book editor for New Review, editor of Quarto, and poetry editor at the New Statesman. He became poetry editor at publishers Faber and Faber in 1981, and has been a fellow of New College, Oxford since 1991, retiring from his post as tutor in June 2010.

He is married to Ann Pasternak Slater, a retired fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. Craig Raine is founder and editor of the literary magazine Areté and a frequent contributor.[9] His daughter Nina Raine is a director and playwright and his son Moses is a playwright.

His works include a number of poetry collections [11]: The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), A Free Translation (1981), Rich (1984), History: The Home Movie (1994), and Clay. Whereabouts Unknown (1996). His reviews and essays are collected in two anthologies: Haydn and the Valve Trumpet (1990) and In Defence of T. S. Eliot (2000). A short critical-biographical study of Eliot, T. S. Eliot: Image, Text and Context, was published in 2007.

Books

Poetry Collections

Fiction

Drama

Libretto

Criticism

As editor

References

  1. ^ British Council: Biography – "It is worth recalling how The Onion, Memory (1978) and A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979), Raine’s first two poetry collections, made such a spectacular impact on the then becalmed world of British poetry, seeming to set off a stylistic revolution of visual similes, wordplay and punning – even if in the long run it turned out to be a fashion. 'The Martian School', so-called by his friend James Fenton and inaugurated with another, Christopher Reid, had a widespread effect on readers and young poets alike, spawning a host of imitators."
  2. ^ FATE PLAYS AN ELECTRIFYING HAND, The Northern Echo, Oct 28, 2002
  3. ^ http://living.scotsman.com/books/Interview-Craig-Raine-author.6399577.jp
  4. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/17/craig-raine-interview-wroe
  5. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/17/craig-raine-interview-wroe
  6. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/17/craig-raine-interview-wroe
  7. ^ FATE PLAYS AN ELECTRIFYING HAND, The Northern Echo, Oct 28, 2002
  8. ^ http://robertgraves.org/trust/print.php?id=7313
  9. ^ a b British Council: Biography
  10. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/17/craig-raine-interview-wroe
  11. ^ Nielsen Book Data at 27 November 2008
  12. ^ "We’ve had the book and film, now it’s Atonement the opera" by Ben Hoyle, The Times (London), 19 March 2010. Retrieved 19 March 2010

External links