W. S. Graham

Graham's poetry was mostly overlooked in his lifetime; however, partly thanks to the support of Harold Pinter,[1] his work was eventually acknowledged.

He was represented in the second edition of the Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse (Harmondsworth, UK, 1962) and the Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2001).

In 1932, he left school to become an apprentice draughtsman and then studied structural engineering at Stow College, Glasgow.

Graham spent the war years working at a number of jobs in Scotland and Ireland before moving to Cornwall in 1944.

The style of these early poems led critics to see Graham as part of the neo-romantic group that included Dylan Thomas and George Barker.

In 1947, Graham received the Atlantic Award for Literature, and lectured at New York University[2] whilst spending a year on a reading touring of the United States.

Unfortunately for the poet, the poem's appearance coincided with the rise of the Movement with their open hostility to the neo-romantics.

This, and his last book, Implements in Their Places are truly original and enduring poetic achievements, for which Graham is slowly coming to be recognised.