Collected Poems

Product Information

Congratulations, Claire Dyer! 2015 Charles Causley Poetry Prize winner | Two Rivers Press". tworiverspress.com. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017 . Retrieved 18 January 2017. Union Street (1957) secured Causley’s reputation as an important contemporary poet. Published with a preface by Edith Sitwell, then at the height of her influence, Union Street collected the best poems from Causley’s first two volumes and added nineteen new ones, including two of his finest poems ever, “I Am the Great Sun” and “At the British War Cemetery, Bayeux,” the last of which Sitwell singled out for particular praise. In her preface, Sitwell placed Causley’s work in its proper historical perspective–English folk song and ballad. While Sitwell praised Causley’s traditional roots, she also noted his “strange individuality.” Like most of Causley’s admirers, however, Sitwell had difficulty in explaining the particular appeal of his work. To express her approval, she repeatedly resorted to vague exclamations of delight, such as “beautiful,”“deeply moving,” and “enchanting.” While these terms describe in some general way the effect Causley’s poetry has on a sympathetic reader, they are so subjective that they shed little light on the special nature of his literary achievement. Unfortunately, Sitwell’s response typifies Causley’s critical reception. His admirers have felt more comfortable in writing appreciations of his work than in examining it in critical terms. The truly “strange individuality” that makes Causley a significant and original artist rather than a faux naif has never been adequately explained. This situation has given most critics the understandable but mistaken impression that while Causley’s poetry may be enjoyed, it is too simple to bear serious analysis. Dana Gioia and Charles Causley, 1984 Music at the festival has included regular appearances from Causley's distant relative, folk singer Jim Causley. featuring his settings of Causley poems, some of which have been recorded for commercial CDs. Twenty-Five Poems by Hamdija Demirovic (1980), translated with the author from the original Yugoslavian His poetry frequently refers to Cornwall and its legends, and Causley was recognised by being made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd in 1955. His scope and interests, however, stretched far beyond his native county. In addition, many poems relate to fellow writers like Keats, Clare, Lorca, Day-Lewis, Clemo, Betjeman and to artists he admired: Van Gogh, Samuel Palmer and Maxim Gorky, as well as the sculptor of local East Cornish origin, Nevill Northey Burnard.

With the collections of poetry that followed ‘Survivor’s Leave’ and ‘Union Street’ his reputation was firmly established and in 1958 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His close friend the poet Ted Hughes said: Causley was born at Launceston, Cornwall, to Charles Samuel Causley, who worked as a groom and gardener, and his wife Laura Jane Bartlett, who was in domestic service. He was educated at the local primary school and Launceston College. When he was seven, in 1924, his father died from long-standing injuries incurred in World War I. [1] As well as words Causley loved music and was able to play both the fiddle and the piano. In his youth he was the pianist of a local band called the Rhythm Boys and provided the music for village dances around Cornwall. He once said ‘I think I have frightened more woodworm out of more pianos than anyone in the west of England.’ War & Teaching Writing, editing and broadcasting after early retirement in 1976, Causley’s later years brought increasing recognition, honours and travel. He never married, struggling through later years in a modest terraced house in his beloved Launceston, before dying in 2003. His reputation and legacy grows steadily, and his home (now held in trust, and much restored) serves as a writer’s retreat and an occasional performance venue. A 60-minute documentary, ‘The Poet’, is scheduled for broadcast by BBC4 during his centenary year, 2017. Considered one of the most important British poets of his generation, Charles Causley was born, lived and died in the small Cornish town of Launceston. But despite initial appearances his was anything but an inactive or uneventful life.That haunted – and haunting – blend of reflections on comradeship, loss, anger, isolation, shame and obligation informs many of his poems drawing upon war in one way or another. Some recount evocative episodes, or sketch insightful portraits, from Causley’s six years of service. Others are a veteran’s musings, up to nearly 50 years on, about ‘aftermath’. The war subtly infused much of his peacetime world and vision. He was much in demand at poetry readings in the United Kingdom and worldwide—the latter travels were sometimes as part of Arts Council and British Council initiatives. He also made many television and radio appearances over the post-war period, particularly for the BBC in the West Country, and as the presenter for many years of the BBC Radio 4 series Poetry Please.

Survivor's Leave followed in 1953, and from then until his death Causley published frequently. He worked as a teacher at a school in Launceston, leaving the town seldom and reluctantly, though he twice spent time in Perth as a visiting Fellow at the University of Western Australia, and worked at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada, and especially after his retirement which taken early in 1976 [2] was much in demand at poetry readings in the United Kingdom. He made many broadcasts.The visionary mode has its greatest range of expression in Causley’s religious poetry. No reader of Farewell, Aggie Weston would have guessed that its author would become one of the few contemporary Christian poets of genuine distinction. Yet the new poems in Union Street confirmed Causley’s transformation from veteran to visionary. The devotional sonnet, “I Am the Great Sun,” which opens the section of new poems reveals a more overtly compassionate side to Christianity than found in Survivor’s Leave. Here Christ speaking from the cross (the poem was inspired by a seventeenth-century Norman crucifix) announces his doomed love for man: At first glance Charles Causley’s life may seem quiet, ordinary, perhaps even hum drum. A private man, he became a schoolteacher in the same school that he himself attended and he lived in a cottage just a few metres from the one in which he was born. An only child, who never married, he spent many years nursing his elderly mother and left his Cornish home only rarely. Yet through the prism of his poetry there emerges a vibrant world vividly observed and a life keenly felt. Credit: causleytrust.org In his own words

Causley was born at Launceston in Cornwall and was educated there and in Peterborough. His father died in 1924 from long-standing injuries from the First World War. Causley had to leave school at 15 to earn money, working as an office boy during his early years. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, as a coder, an experience he later wrote about in a book of short stories, Hands to Dance and Skylark.Among the English poetry of the last half century, Charles Causley’s could well turn out to be the best loved and most needed.’ Charles Causley Poetry Competition Winners". Literature Works SW - Nurturing literature development activity in South West England. 22 January 2015 . Retrieved 18 January 2017. Rather unfairly stereotyped by some as ‘a ballad poet’ (perhaps because few ever used that form in the 20 th century), or ‘a children’s poet’ (linked to his primary-level teaching), or ‘a Cornish poet’ (since he indeed deeply loved the county), his ‘voice’ is simultaneously quite individual and recognisably universal. He loved landscapes, travel, music, art, history, myth and legend. And people, too: in all their mysterious varieties of life, pain, comedy and character.