Colorado Poets Center

John Latham

Biography

John Latham has published 4 collections of poetry in the UK, with Harry Chambers / Peterloo Poets, and one collection with the Mellen Press, New York.  A new collection, Sailor Boy, is expected to be published by the Collective Press, in the UK, in 2005. He has won first prize in more than 20 national poetry competitions in the UK, and has frequently been a tutor to both the Arvon Foundation and the Taliesin Trust, UK, on 5-day residential creative writing courses.  His poems (also radio stories and plays) have appeared on BBC national radio and TV, UK. He was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 1990, and his poem Construction on the Queen’s Highway won the A.E. Housman Cup in 2002. He has worked extensively in schools, led many poetry writing workshops and often given poetry readings.  He has taught poetry in prisons, and had writer-in-residence appointments.  His first novel, Ditch-Crawl, is scheduled to be published in the fall of 2004.

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Bibliography

Poetry
Four full collections published by Peterloo Poets (UK):
Unpacking Mr Jones, 1982.
From the Other Side of the Street, 1985.
All-Clear, 1991.
The Unbearable Weight of Mercury, 1996.

Full collection published by Mellen Press (New York): Trench-Fever, 1996.
One of five poets in Quintet, a collection produced by Staple Publications, 1993 (UK).

First-Prize winner in twenty national (UK) poetry competitions.
Many poems broadcast on UK national radio and TV.

Prose
About 10 stories broadcast on BBC national radio (UK).
Prize-Winner in several UK story competitions.
Several stories anthologized.
Prize-winner in several short story competitions (UK).

Plays
Three full-length plays broadcast on UK BBC Radio 4:
Heavy Roller, 1988.
The Spinning room of Drunken Lovers, 1991.
The Hanging of Ernest Moon, 1993.

Short play produced at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester: Pace-maker, 1989.

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Critical Commentary

Some Reviews of UK Poetry Collections

“Whether writing from the child’s-eye view or the man’s, John Latham emerges from this sad, funny, tender book as a poet who sees truths from a strikingly original angle of vision.”  Jeremy Hooker, Anglo-Welsh Review

“Spectacular writing, with lines that hang around in the mind long after you’ve read them.”  Ian McMillan, Iron.

“His verse is almost all passionate recall of childhood and marriage, a poetry of sensitivity such as many novels offer. The detail is exact, the spirit of the past is conjured through the words most feelingly.”  Peter Porter, Observer.

“The poetic effects are subtle ….. yet he is able to make the tiniest details sing. Unsentimental, plain, but rhythmically invigorating.”  John Greening, Poetry Review.

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Page last updated May 20, 2004
For page information,
contact Dr. Rita Jones (RitaJones@alum.albertson.edu)
or Dr. Robert King (rwendellking@yahoo.com)