Charles Causley
Charles Causley (
August 24,
1917 –
November 4,
2003) was a
Cornish poet and
writer. His work is noted for its simplicity and directness, for its concerns with
Christianity and for its associations with his native
Cornwall.
Causley was born in
Launceston in Cornwall and was educated there and in
Peterborough. In the
Second World War he served in the Navy, an experience he later wrote about in a book of short stories,
Hands to Dance. In the 1950s he began publishing his poetry, some of which continued the sea-faring theme. In the post-war years he trained as a teacher and worked at a school in Launceston. He was also employed by the
BBC. He spent the remainder of his life in Cornwall, a county he became intimately asscociated with. As well as poetry and plays and short stories he also wrote opera librettos. In 1958 Causley was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature and was awarded a
CBE in 1986. Other awards include the
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1967 and a
Cholmondeley Award in 1971. In 1973 - 1974 he was Visiting Fellow in Poetry at the
University of Exeter. He was presented with the Heywood Hill Literary Prize in 2000. Between 1962 and 1966 he was a member of the Poetry Panel of the
Arts Council of Great Britain.
In 1982, on his 65th birthday, a book of poems was published in his honour that included contributions from
Ted Hughes,
Seamus Heaney,
Philip Larkin and twenty three other poets, testifying to the respect that the British poetry community had for him. Despite this, his work is rarely considered as part of a movement or group and his influence on his contemporaries would seem to be small. Many considered him, like
John Betjeman to be a man working outside of the dominant trends of the poetry of his day. Because of this, academia has paid less attention to his work than it might. His popularity, particularly among the Cornish, remains relatively high.
List is not complete, needs work...Poems
*Farewell, Aggie Weston, (The Hand and Flower Press, 1951)
*Survivor's Leave , (The Hand and Flower Press, 1953)
*Union Street, (Hart-Davis, 1957)
*Johnny Alleluia: Poems, (Hart-Davis, 1961)
*Ballad of the Bread Man (1962)
*Underneath the Water, (Macmillan, 1968)
*Figure of 8: narrative poems (Macmillan, 1969)
*Figgie Hobbin, (Macmillan, 1970)
*Collected Poems 1951 - 1975, (Macmillan, 1975)
*Here we go round the Round House (1976)
*Secret Destinations (1984)
*A Field of Vision (1988)
*Collected Poems, 1951-2000 (2000)
*Innocent's Song
*Timothy Winters
*Ballad of Charlotte Dymond
*What has Happened to Lulu?
*Colonel Fazackerley
*Who?
*My Mother saw a Dancing Bear
For children
*Figgie Hobbin: Poems for Children (1970)
*'Quack!' said the Billy-goat (c1970)
*As I went down Zig Zag (1974)
*Dick Whittington (1976)
*The Animals' Carol (1978)
*Jack the Treacle Eater (1987)
*The Young Man of Cury and Other Poems (1991)
*All day Saturday: and other poems (1994)
*Selected poems for children (1997)
*The Merrymaid of Zennor (1999)
Plays
*The Conquering Hero (1937)
*Benedict (1938)
*How Pleasant to Know Mrs. Lear: A Victorian comedy in one act (1948)
*The Ballad of Aucassin and Nicolette (Libretto, 1981)
*
11 Poems*
Listen to Causley reading some of his poems*
Goia The Most Unfashionable Poet Alive*
Obituary*
Charles Causley*
British Library
