Alan Brownjohn is a Camden poet (b. July
28, 1931) . Alan is a talented poet, playwright, novelist, journalist, critic
and writer of children's books. Alan and
Elaine Feinstein are our Honoured
'Poetic Heroes' at the Purple Poets' HEROES
ON POSTCARDS reading at the Camden Town Hall with the Mayor of Camden, Councillor
Faruque Ansari, on National Poetry Day, October 8th 2009 (2 - 4
p.m.).
Come join them to celebrate our Borough of Camden
Heroes!
BIOGRAPHY (source:
The
Poetry Archive)
.... Brownjohn himself acknowledges the moral purpose of his writing: "I
write nothing without hoping it might make the world one grain better - a
pompous statement which, I suppose, makes me a moralist as a writer, a humanist
one." This is borne out by the subject matter of his poems which, for all
their stylistic and thematic diversity, are principally interested in human
social interaction. Narrative is often the chosen mode of investigation:
some poems, 'An Orchard Path' or 'The Presentation' for instance, have the
charged mystery of the best short stories. Brownjohn is an acute and sometimes
satirical observer of "the minutiae of human behaviour" whether exposing
the sinister banalities of modern life in 'Incident on a Holiday' or detailing
the rituals of boredom and hierarchy amongst the department store staff in
his sequence 'The Automatic Days'. Alongside this social realism is also
a strong streak of the fantastic and surreal, often employed in the creation
of dystopias as in his description of the overbearing Nanny in 'From his
Childhood' whose ringing cry of "Courage!" is both amusing and unsettling.....
His recording was made for The Poetry Archive on 12 July 2002 at The Audio
Workshop, London, UK and was produced by Liane Aukin.
Alan Brownjohn's Favourite Poetry Sayings:
"Poetry as 'a criticism of life' has always appealed to me, but it's usually
forgotten that Matthew Arnold went on to add 'under the conditions fixed
for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.' In other
words, the poetry - which has to come out of a sense of the wonder of existence
and the desire to give it meaning and permanence (and sometimes extra colour
and oddity) - comes first." - Alan Brownjohn on Matthew Arnold
"Poetry is an exact a science as geometry" - Flaubert
"A poet I admire and enjoy deeply, John Crowe Ransom, said somewhere that
writing poetry was somewhat like gardening, which is strange from someone
whose poems don?t look in the least 'organic', but have a kind of painted
or sculpted formality." - Alan Brownjohn on John Crowe Ransom
Books
Travellers Alone, Liverpool, Heron Press, 1954
- out of print
The Railings, London, Digby Press, 1961
- out of print
To Clear the River (as John Berrington), London, Heinemann, 1964 -
out of print
The Lions' Mouths, London, Macmillan, 1966
- out of print
Penguin Modern Poets 14 (Alan Brownjohn, Michael Hamburger and Charles
Tomlinson), London, Penguin, 1969
- out of print
Sandgrains on a Tray: Poems, Macmillan, 1969
- out of print
First I Say This: A Selection of Poems for Reading Aloud (editor),
London, Hutchinson, 1969
- out of print
Brownjohn's Beasts, London, Secker and Warburg, 1970
- out of print
New Poems 1970-1971 (with Seamus Heaney and Jon Stallworthy), Hutchinson,
1971
- out of print
Warrior's Career, Macmillan, 1972 - out of print
A Song of Good Life, Secker and Warburg, 1975
- out of print
New Poetry 3 (editor with Maureen Duffy), London, Arts Council of
Great Britain, 1977
- out of print
A Night in the Gazebo, Secker and Warburg, 1980
- out of print
Goethe's Torquato Tasso (adaptation), London, Angel, 1985
- out of print
The Old Flea-Pit, Hutchinson, 1987
- out of print
Meet and Write: A Teaching Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (editor
with Sandy Brownjohn), London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1987
Collected Poems 1952-1983, Hutchinson, 1983 (new ed. 1988)
- out of print
The Observation Car, Hutchinson, 1990
- out of print
The Gregory Anthology 1987-1990 (editor with K. W. Gransden), Hutchinson,
1990
In the Cruel Arcade, London, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994
- out of print
Pierre Corneille's Horace (translator), Angel, 1996
- out of print
The Cat Without E-mail, London, Enitharmon, 2001
The Men Around Her Bed, Enitharmon, 2004
Alan Brownjohn Reading from his poems, CD,
The Poetry Archive, 2005
Collected Poems, Enitharmon, 2006
Publishers
Enitharmon Press
Hutchinson
Prizes
1979 Cholmondeley Award
1985 Travel Scholarship from the Society of Authors
1990 Authors' Club Prize First Novel Award, The Way You Tell Them
................................................................................................................
POEM (text and recording)
by Alan Brownjohn
FROM HIS CHILDHOOD
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=107
© Alan Brownjohn
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WEBSITES FEATURING ALAN BROWNJOHN'S WORK
Camden
Books: Windows On The Moon | Alan Brownjohn | Black Spring Press (£15)...
16 April 2009 ... When we last hit the skids
Poet Alan Brownjohn tells Simon Wroe that his new novel draws on memories
of post-war austerity. "--SUDDEN snowfall in February and a frosty
economic climate for all seasons are very 2009 concerns, but to the writer
Alan Brownjohn they are strangely familiar portents.
"The poet, who has lived in Belsize Park for nearly 40 years, has just published
his fourth novel, Windows on the Moon, an historical fiction about post-war
London during the ferocious winter of 1946/47.
"Brownjohn, 16 at the time, remembers this winter as “the most vivid
climatic event in my lifetime,” an experience compounded by food rations,
threadbare clothes and economic torpor."
http://www.thecnj.co.uk/review/2009/041609/books041609_02.html
Poetry
Archive
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=106
British
Humanist Association
http://www.humanism.org.uk/about/people/distinguished-supporters/Alan-Brownjohn
Doollee
Playwrights Data Base: Plays and Play Publications
http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/brownjohn-alan.html
Thanks to a grant by the Camden Council
Alan Brownjohn (and Elaine Feinstein)
were our Honoured 'Poetic Heroes'
at the Purple Poets'
HEROES ON POSTCARDS
National Poetry Day 2009 Reading
hosted by the Purple Poets
at the Camden Town Hall, October 8th 2009 (2 - 4 p.m.)
This is an educational site.
© resides with the author. All rights reserved.
West Euston Purple Poets
Writer-in-Residence
Kim Morrissey.
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Crypt Centre
Munster Square
West Euston
London NW1 3PL
Tel: 0207 383 4922
info@westeustontimebank.org.uk
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West Euston
London NW1 3PL
Tel: 0207 383 4922
info@thirdageproject.org.uk
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