Christopher Middleton – författare

Christopher Middleton, long a resident of the USA, is one of Britain's finest poets. He was writing (not for publication) his 'Nocturnal Journal' during the two years prior to his retirement from the University of Texas at Austin, where he had taught German and Comparative Literature since 1966. The journal appears here in conjunction with conversations tape-recorded by Marius Kociejowski in London during October 2002 and June 2003. In both areas Middleton attends eloquently to his concerns as poet, translator, and essayist: values intrinsic and peculiar to poetry, the fundamental human aptitude (and craving) for aesthetic expression, and the reading of sign-systems usually deemed haphazard (e.g., a Turkish sea-mew, a soccer match, the aprons of waiters, rubbish in the Paris Metro, and a fresco in Cappadocia). Also included here, by way of introduction to the volume, is a brief but entertaining reminiscence of his first encounters with Christopher Middleton by Marius Kociejowski.

The Eyemouth Fishing Disaster saw almost two hundred men lose their lives when their small, wooden fishing boats were caught in near-hurricane force winds off the coast of Scotland in 1881. The Japanese fishing training vessel the Ehime Maru was quietly making its way across the Pacific Ocean when it was struck from beneath by a US Navy nuclear submarine and sank within minutes. The British trawler Gaul, newly constructed and specifically designed to handle harsh conditions and stormy seas, was lost with all hands in 1974 without managing to issue a distress call. The cause of its sinking would remain a mystery for over two decades.These are three of the twelve disasters this book covers in gripping detail. The key events which led to each disaster are analysed, along with the impact that the disaster had on the fishing industry and local communities, and the changes in laws and legislation which were put in place to prevent such tragedies from happening again. Several different types of fishing disasters are examined with incidents involving trawlers, dredgers, shellfish pickers, seal hunters and recreational anglers all being covered. This book reveals exactly why commercial fishing is the world’s most dangerous peacetime occupation.

This selection of Middleton’s letters offers a new beginning point for readers of this dazzling, many-talented writer. The first letter here dates from 1936, the last from 2015, and this selection charts a life lived to the full as the poet reports on his work, his writing life and his continuous transatlantic engagement with the poets and critics of his generation.Enthusiastic, discursive and slyly humorous, Christopher Middleton (1926–2015) was an electrifying correspondent. This selection of his letters spans his entire literary career, illuminating his own practice and the modernist poetic project more broadly. He is represented here as poet, translator, teacher, reader: perhaps most of all, voracious noticer. The letter was an ideal medium for an imagination like Middleton’s, open to unexpected connections and transitions, interested jackdaw-like in whatever presents itself, as these 101 examples make clear.

Serpentine: A mineral or rock consisting of a hydrous magnesium silicate, H4 M3 Si2 O9, and having usually a dull green color, often with a spotted or mottled appearance, resembling a serpent's skin. It occurs usually in masses, which are sometimes foliated, sometimes fibrous ... Presence of iron may give it a red or brownish hue. Precious, or noble, serpentine is translucent & of a rich oil-green color. Serpentine results from the alteration of other magnesian minerals, esp. chrysolite, amphibole, & pyroxene, and is frequently found in large masses ... -Webster's, 1914; from a note preserved in the author's papersSerpentine was first published in by Oasis Books, London, in 1985. It received little distribution and minimal notice at the time, somewhat to the author's distress, and the publisher's regret. It has never reappeared complete, although selections have appeared in subsequent compilations. A collection of experimental prose texts-although the author forbade such a definition from appearing anywhere in the first edition, presumably in case it frightened off potential readers-Christopher Middleton described it as being a series of texts "on the nature of evil".