{{Short description|British poet (1878–1962)}} thumb|Wilfrid Wilson Gibson in The Bookman Vol 57, December 1919. {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}} '''Wilfrid Wilson Gibson''' (2 October 1878 – 26 May 1962) was a British Georgian poet, who was associated with World War I but continued publishing poetry into the 1940s and 1950s.
==Early work== [[File:Plaque re Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Georgian Poet - geograph.org.uk - 671762.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Memorial plaque in Hexham.]] Gibson was born in Hexham, Northumberland. His parents were Elizabeth Judith Frances (born Walton) and John Pattison Gibson. Her father was a chemist who was interested in photography and antiquarianism.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=2004-09-23 |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33392 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |access-date=2023-08-26 |place=Oxford |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/33392 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.}}</ref> His elder sister Elizabeth, who became his teacher and mentor, also became a published poet.<ref>{{Citation |last=Greenway |first=Judy |title=Gibson [married name Cheyne], Elizabeth [known as Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne] (1869–1931), poet and social activist |date=2023-07-13 |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-95466 |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |access-date=2023-08-24 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.95466 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8|url-access=subscription }}</ref> He left the north for London in 1914 after his mother died. He had been publishing poems in magazines since 1895, and his first collections in book form were published by Elkin Mathews in 1902. His collections of verse plays and dramatic poems ''The Stonefolds'' and ''On The Threshold'' were published by the Samurai Press (of Cranleigh) in 1907, followed next year by the book of poems, ''The Web of Life''.<ref>'"Young men who knew that the age demanded something new in poetry were impressed by the austerity of his little 'working class' plays". (Joy Grant, ''Harold Monro & the Poetry Bookshop'' (1966), p. 19. Whistler p. 281 remarks on the ''colloquial, homespun realism'' that at first was admired in Gibson.</ref>
Despite his residence in London, and later in Gloucestershire, many of Gibson's poems both then and later, have Northumberland settings: ''Hexham's Market Cross''; ''Hareshaw''; and ''The Kielder Stone''. Others deal with poverty and passion amid wild Northumbrian landscapes. Still others are devoted to fishermen, industrial workers and miners, often alluding to local ballads and the rich folk-song heritage of the North East.
In London, he met both Edward Marsh and Rupert Brooke, becoming a close friend and later Brooke's literary executor (with Lascelles Abercrombie and Walter de la Mare).<ref>Gibson met de la Mare, and quite a number of other poets, through Marsh (Theresa Whistler, ''Imagination of the Heart: The Life of Walter de la Mare'' (1993), p. 205 and 208) in 1912. ''It was with de la Mare that Gibson was to make the closest friendship. Gentle and unlucky, he himself best fitted Brooke's description of those good-hearted and simple and nice poets he wanted to protect.''</ref> This was at the period when the first ''Georgian Poetry'' anthology was being hatched. Gibson was one of the insiders.<ref>Paul Delany, ''The Neo-Pagans'' (1987), p. 199, writes of a business lunch 19 September 1912 at Marsh's flat, with Gibson, John Drinkwater, Harold Monro and Arundel del Re.</ref>
During the early part of his writing life, Wilfrid Wilson Gibson wrote poems that featured the "macabre". One such poem is "Flannan Isle", based on a real-life mystery.
Gibson was one of the founders of the Dymock poets, a group of writers who lived in and around the village of Dymock, on the Gloucestershire/Herefordshire border, in the years immediately before the outbreak of the First World War.<ref>[http://www.royalforestofdean.info/famous-people.shtml Famous People of Herefordshire, Monmouthshire and Royal Forest of Dean at royalforestofdean.info]</ref> Gibson also published plays, as well as several prose works. For instance, he wrote and argued beautifully about the merit of verse at the time of World War II.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gibson|first=Wilfrid|date=1940-10-01|url=https://academic.oup.com/english/article/3/15/109/460457|journal=English: Journal of the English Association|language=en|volume=3|issue=15|pages=109–111|doi=10.1093/english/3.15.109|issn=0013-8215|title=Only Time Will Tell: An Indeterminate Meditation|url-access=subscription}}</ref> He wrote a piece of criticism on ''Italian Nationalism and English Letters'' by Harry W. Rudman regarding the contributions made by Italian exiles in England to English literature, which were in the form of poetry by and large.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gibson|first=Wilfrid|date=1940-10-01|title=Italian Nationalism and English Letters|url=https://academic.oup.com/english/article/3/15/142-a/460545|journal=English: Journal of the English Association|language=en|volume=3|issue=15|pages=142–a–142|doi=10.1093/english/3.15.142-a|issn=0013-8215|url-access=subscription}}</ref> He also wrote criticism on ''The Burning Oracle: Studies in the Poetry of Action'' by G. Wilson Knight, wherein he commends the fact that Knight sees the creative energy of living writers not only in the creation of artworks, but also in the creation of life itself.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gibson|first=Wilfred|date=1940-03-01|title=The Burning Oracle: Studies in the Poetry of Action|url=https://academic.oup.com/english/article/3/13/35/438811|journal=English: Journal of the English Association|language=en|volume=3|issue=13|pages=35–36|doi=10.1093/english/3.13.35|issn=0013-8215|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
==Death and reputation== Gibson died on 26 May 1962, in Virginia Water, Surrey.<ref>{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKNK1YwHcQ4C&pg=PA461 | title=Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature| year=1995| publisher=Merriam-Webster| isbn=9780877790426}}</ref>
His reputation was eclipsed somewhat by the Ezra Pound-T. S. Eliot school of Modernist poetry,<ref>[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4980 The ''Literary Encyclopedia''] states that his reputation plummeted. Whistler p. 282 has "Gibson's was the saddest fate of all the Georgians. Once acclaimed as the leader of an exciting new movement, when that movement came into derision the critics found in him the epitome of its vices."</ref><ref>Arthur Clutton-Brock (TLS, 24 February 1927, ''Five Modern Poets'') considers Gibson alongside Eliot, AE, Herbert Read and James Stephens (pp 113-114). It is concluded there that "Mr Gibson's poetry... has its own specific qualities and is, in its essentials unique". In 1942 Philip Tomlinson refers to Gibson as "this distinguished poet" (TLS 31 January 1942 p. 57).</ref> though his work remained popular.
==Further reading== *Dominic Hibberd, ''Wilfrid Gibson and Harold Monro, the Pioneers'' (Cecil Woolf, 2006)
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{wikisource|works=or}} {{Commons category}} * [http://www.spartacus-educational.com/FWWgibson.htm Page at ''Spartacus''] * [http://libus.csd.mu.edu/record=b1765375 Elizabeth Whitcomb Houghton Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190813075121/https://libus.csd.mu.edu/record=b1765375 |date=13 August 2019 }}, containing letters by Gibson * [https://uogspecialcollections.wordpress.com/category/gloucestershire-poets-writers-and-artists/ Gloucestershire Poets, Writers and Artists Collection] University of Gloucestershire Archives and Special Collections * {{Gutenberg author|id=8220}} * {{FadedPage|id=Gibson, Wilfrid Wilson|name=Wilfrid Wilson Gibson|author=yes}} * {{Internet Archive author|sname=Wilfrid Wilson Gibson}} * {{Librivox author|id=1695}} * Archival material at {{wikidata|qualifier|property|P485|Q24568958|P856|format=\[%q %p\]}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibson, Wilfred Wil}} Category:1878 births Category:1962 deaths Category:20th-century English poets Category:People from Hexham Category:British Army soldiers Category:British Army personnel of World War I Category:British World War I poets Category:20th-century English male writers Category:English male poets Category:People from Dymock