[3] During the Second World War, he was a conscientious objector,[4] and worked for the Forestry Commission,[5] on the land in the Yorkshire Dales and at the Lansbury Gate Farm, Clavering, Essex.

Moving on from Bath, Kirkup taught in a London grammar school before leaving England in 1956[5] to live and work in continental Europe, the Americas and the Far East.

Kirkup came to public attention in 1977, after the newspaper Gay News published his poem "The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name", in which a Roman centurion describes his lust for and attraction to the crucified Jesus.

What started in 1995 with the collection Strange Attractors and A Certain State of Mind – the latter an anthology of classic, modern and contemporary Japanese haiku – ended after more than a dozen publications with the epic poem Pikadon in 1997.

[9] Kirkup's home town of South Shields now holds a growing collection of his works in the Central Library, and artefacts from his time in Japan are housed in the nearby Museum.

[13] New Zealand composer Douglas Mews set two of Kirkup's poems to music: Japan Physical for soprano and piano and Ghosts, Fire, Water for unaccompanied choir and alto solo.