Few English poets have quite Kit Wright's range. From heart-felt lyricism to blistering satire, from the ribald to the grief-stricken, his poems cover almost everything life can throw at anyone, quite literally from the sublime to the ridiculous. Entertaining and engaging, writing with wit, panache and dazzling virtuosity, Kit Wright is both a seriously funny poet and a poignant chronicler of our times. His latest collection, published on his 70th birthday, shows him young at heart and writing, as always, from the heart of England.
Kit Wright (born 17 June 1944 in Crockham Hill, Kent) is the author of more than twenty-five books, for both adults and children, and the winner of awards including an Arts Council Writers' Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize and (jointly) the Heinemann Award. After a scholarship to Oxford University, he worked as a lecturer in Canada, then returned to England and a position in the Poetry Society. He is currently a full-time writer.
Thoroughly English, containing lots of gentle humour. Too much of both of those things for me. Favourite moments: 'The Spiritus Loci...'; 'Stabat Mater'; 'London Stars'.