Peter Reading

{{short description|English poet and author (1946–2011)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Peter Reading''' (27 July 1946 – 17 November 2011<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8907920/Peter-Reading.html |title=Obituary: Peter Reading |publisher=Daily Telegraph |date= 22 November 2011|accessdate=2011-11-22 |location=London}}</ref>) was an English poet and the author of 26 collections of poetry. He is known for his deep interest in nature and the use of classical metres.<ref>Keith Tuma, ''Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry'' (2001), p. 725.</ref> He was widely regarded as an influential alternative presence on the UK poetry scene, and ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry'' describes his verse as "strongly anti-romantic, disenchanted and usually satirical".<ref>Martin Seymour-Smith "Reading, Peter" in Ian Hamilton (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry'', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, p.443</ref> Interviewed by Robert Potts, he described his work as a combination of "painstaking care" and "misanthropy".<ref>Robert Potts [http://www.oxfordpoetry.co.uk/texts.php?int=v3_peterreading "An Interview with Peter Reading", ''Oxford Poetry'', OP V.3 [Winter 1990] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100312073314/http://www.oxfordpoetry.co.uk/texts.php?int=v3_peterreading |date=2010-03-12 }}</ref>

==Background== Reading was educated at Alsop High School. After studying painting at Liverpool College of Art, he worked as a schoolteacher at Ruffwood School, Kirkby (1967–68), and at Liverpool College of Art, where he taught Art History (1968–70).<ref name = "Peter Reading: British Council biography">{{cite web|url= https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/peter-reading |title=British Council biography for Peter Reading|access-date=21 September 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230923153003/https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/peter-reading|archive-date=23 September 2023|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite ODNB|id=104389|first=Alan|last = Brownjohn|title=Reading, Peter Gray (1946–2011)}}</ref> He then worked for 22 years as a weighbridge operator at an animal feed mill in Shropshire, a job which left him free to think, until he was sacked for refusing to wear a uniform introduced by new owners of the business. His only break was a two-year residency at Sunderland Polytechnic (1981–83). After leaving Liverpool, he lived for 40 years in various parts of Shropshire, in later years in Little Stretton, near Ludlow.

The benevolence of America’s Lannan Foundation rescued him from poverty. He was the first writer to hold the one-year Lannan writing residency in Marfa, Texas (in 1999), and is the only British poet to have won the Lannan Award for Poetry twice, in 1990 and 2004, as well as the only poet to read an entire life’s work for the Foundation's DVD archive<ref name =LannanBio>{{cite web|url=http://www.lannan.org/bios/peter-reading/|title=Peter Reading (Lannan)|access-date=21 September 2024}}</ref> – his filmed readings for Lannan (made in 2001 and 2010) of 26 poetry collections make up the only archive of its kind. His 1997 collection ''Work in Regress'' was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.

==Awards== *Cholmondeley Award (1978) *Dylan Thomas Award (1983), for ''Diplopic'' *Whitbread Prize for Poetry (1986), for ''Stet'' *Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, 1990 and 2004.

==Poetry collections== *''Water and Waste'' (1970) *''For the Municipality's Elderly'' (1974) *''The Prison Cell & Barrel Mystery'' (1976) *''Nothing for Anyone'' (1977) *''Fiction'' (1979) *''Tom o'Bedlam's Beauties'' (1981) *''Diplopic'' (1983) *''5x5x5x5x5'' (1983) *''C'' (1984) *''Ukulele Music'' (1985) *''Going On'' (1985) *''Essential Reading'' (1986) *''Stet'' (1986) *''Final Demands'' (1988) *''Perduta Gente'' (1989) *''Shitheads'' (1989) *''Three in One'' (1991) *''Evagatory'' (1992) *''Last Poems'' (1994) *''Collected Poems Vol 1: 1970-1984'' (1995) *''Eschatological'' (1996) *''Collected Poems Vol 2: 1985-1996'' (1996) *''Chinoiserie'' (1997) *''Work in Regress'' (1997) *''Apopthegmatic'' (1999) *''Ob'' (1999) *''Repetitious'' (1999) *''Marfan'' (2000) *''[untitled]'' (2001) *''Faunal'' (2002) *''Civil'' (2002) *''Collected Poems Vol 3: 1997-2003'' (2003) *''-273.15'' (2005) *''Vendange Tardive'' (2010)

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120428130614/http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepage.asp?isbn=1852244674 Isabel Martin (2000), ''Reading Peter Reading'']

==External links== *[https://archive.today/20130119170752/http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/profile/?p=auth214 At ''Contemporary Writers''] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20071013055940/http://www.diacenter.org/prg/poetry/98_99/readingbio.html Biography] *[http://www.qualm.co.uk/mainpr.html#preading Peter Reading Poems in ''Qualm''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230520211246/http://www.qualm.co.uk/mainpr.html#preading |date=20 May 2023 }} *[http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210007213 Peter Reading in the Metropolitan Museum, New York] {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reading, Peter}} Category:1946 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Costa Book Award winners Category:People from Walton, Liverpool Category:Alumni of Liverpool College of Art Category:English male poets Category:20th-century English poets Category:20th-century English male writers Category:Poets from Liverpool