Kit Wright was born in 1944 in Crockham Hill, Kent, and has published widely for adults and children. After a scholarship to Oxford, he worked as a lecturer in Canada, was education officer at the Poetry Society from 1970 to 1975, Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1977-79, and subsequently a freelance writer. His poetry titles include The Bear Looked Over the Mountain (Salamander, 1977), Bump-Starting the Hearse (Hutchinson, 1983), Poems 1974-1983 (Hutchinson, 1988), Short Afternoons (Hutchinson, 1989), Hoping It Might Be So: Poems 1974-2000, including a new collection (Leviathan, 2000; Faber, 2008), Ode to Didcot Power Station (Bloodaxe Books, 2014) and Jug Band Jag (Bloodaxe Books, 2025). A selection of his poems was included in Penguin Modern Poets 1 (second series, 1995). He has won many literary awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize, Hawthornden Prize, Heinemann Award and Cholmondeley Award.

Sublime… Kit Wright, one of the best poets writing in Britain today.

• 113 Namesake15 A Pub Wall in 197416 One Item or Less19 The Art of Adolf Hitler20 The Ambition of Joe Aiello, Or The Fifty-Nine Slugs23 Shadoof24 Birch25 The Bird Itself26 Creation Song of Westgate35 Halfway Round the Golf Course36 At the Walter Pater Hogroast37 Guest House Threats39 Dead Bullet40 Down the Grove42 The Spirit of Alfred Tennyson Suddenly Rounds on Ezra Pound43 Las Cabras Son Malas44 A Seashell Sings45 The Forsaken Hero46 Arrival of the Butcher’s Van in the School Drive48 The Migraine Show49 The Witch’s Tongue52 Arthur Spark Steps Out in the Cause of Science53 Gordon and Walter Press Their Suits in Vain56 Welcome to the Expatriate Community 259 Slow Train60 Torpedo Path77 Abandoned Snooker Table78 Bookeries79 A Night on the Tiles81 The Eyes of Mr Silverman83 Rat-Rhymes for Unfamiliars85 A Sentimental Education86 Just Before the Ruination87 The Gulls88 Dancing to ‘Slough’89 Last Chorus90 Caneback: A Phantasmagoria92 St Bernard and the Blackbird93 Drink So Much Whiskey I Stagger When I’m Sleep

Kit Wright was born in 1944 in Crockham Hill, Kent, and has published widely for adults and children. After a scholarship to Oxford, he worked as a lecturer in Canada, was education officer at the Poetry Society from 1970 to 1975, Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1977-79, and subsequently a freelance writer. His poetry titles include The Bear Looked Over the Mountain (Salamander, 1977), Bump-Starting the Hearse (Hutchinson, 1983), Poems 1974-1983 (Hutchinson, 1988), Short Afternoons (Hutchinson, 1989), Hoping It Might Be So: Poems 1974-2000, including a new collection (Leviathan, 2000; Faber, 2008), Ode to Didcot Power Station (Bloodaxe Books, 2014) and Jug Band Jag (Bloodaxe Books, 2025). A selection of his poems was included in Penguin Modern Poets 1 (second series, 1995). He has won many literary awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize, Hawthornden Prize, Heinemann Award and Cholmondeley Award.

Sublime… Kit Wright, one of the best poets writing in Britain today.

• 113 Namesake15 A Pub Wall in 197416 One Item or Less19 The Art of Adolf Hitler20 The Ambition of Joe Aiello, Or The Fifty-Nine Slugs23 Shadoof24 Birch25 The Bird Itself26 Creation Song of Westgate35 Halfway Round the Golf Course36 At the Walter Pater Hogroast37 Guest House Threats39 Dead Bullet40 Down the Grove42 The Spirit of Alfred Tennyson Suddenly Rounds on Ezra Pound43 Las Cabras Son Malas44 A Seashell Sings45 The Forsaken Hero46 Arrival of the Butcher’s Van in the School Drive48 The Migraine Show49 The Witch’s Tongue52 Arthur Spark Steps Out in the Cause of Science53 Gordon and Walter Press Their Suits in Vain56 Welcome to the Expatriate Community 259 Slow Train60 Torpedo Path77 Abandoned Snooker Table78 Bookeries79 A Night on the Tiles81 The Eyes of Mr Silverman83 Rat-Rhymes for Unfamiliars85 A Sentimental Education86 Just Before the Ruination87 The Gulls88 Dancing to ‘Slough’89 Last Chorus90 Caneback: A Phantasmagoria92 St Bernard and the Blackbird93 Drink So Much Whiskey I Stagger When I’m Sleep