David Wright (poet)
| David Wright | |
|---|---|
David Wright, by Patrick Swift, c. 1960
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| Born |
23 February 1920 Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Died | 28 August 1994 (aged 74) Waldron, East Sussex |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | South African by birth; British |
| Education | Oriel College, Oxford |
David John Murray Wright (23 February 1920 – 28 August 1994) was an author and "an acclaimed South African-born poet".
Wright was born in Johannesburg, South Africa 23 February 1920 of normal hearing. When he was 7 years old he contracted scarlet fever and was deafened as a result of the disease. He immigrated to England at the age of 14, where he was enrolled in the Northampton School for the Deaf. He studied at Oriel College, Oxford, and graduated in 1942.
His first work, a poem entitled Eton Hall, was published in 1942–43 in the journal Oxford Poetry.
He became a freelance writer in 1947 after working on the Sunday Times newspaper for five years. With John Heath-Stubbs he edited the Faber Book of Twentieth Century Verse. He edited the literary magazine Nimbus from 1955 to 1956, during which time he published 19 poems, sent to him by Patrick Swift, by Patrick Kavanagh, which proved to be the turing point in Kavanagh's career. He co-founded the quarterly literary review X magazine which he co-edited from 1959 to 1962. His work includes three books about Portugal written with Patrick Swift, his co-founder and co-editor of X. He translated The Canterbury Tales and Beowulf. He penned an autobiography in 1969, and a biography of fellow South African poet Roy Campbell in 1961. Wright also edited a number of publications throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He held the Gregory Fellowship in Poetry at the University of Leeds (1965–67).
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