John Gray (poet)

Very Reverend Canon John Gray (2 March 1866 – 14 June 1934) was an English poet and Catholic priest whose works include Silverpoints, The Long Road and Park: A Fantastic Story.

[1] He continued his education by attending a series of evening classes, studying French, German, Latin, music and art.

He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French Symbolists Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Jules Laforgue and Arthur Rimbaud into English, often for the first time.

[1] Gray's first notable publication was a collection of verse called Silverpoints (1893), consisting of sixteen original poems and thirteen translations from Verlaine (7), Mallarmé (1), Rimbaud (2), and Baudelaire (3).

In his review of it Richard Le Gallienne distinguished it from the output of many of the 'decadent' poets in its inability to accomplish "that gloating abstraction from the larger life of humanity that marks the decadent".

It contained eleven original poems and twenty-nine translations from Jacopone da Todi, Prudentius, Verlaine, Angelus Silesius, Notker Balbulus, St John of the Cross, and other poets both Catholic and Protestant.

Gray's collected poems, with extensive notes, were printed in a 1988 volume edited by English professor and 1890s expert Ian Fletcher.

Wilmann, a play based on John Gray's life, premiered at The Old Red Lion Theatre, London, in August 2014.