Bill Griffiths
Encyclopedia
Bill Griffiths was a poet
and Anglo-Saxon
scholar associated with the British Poetry Revival
.
, Middlesex
. As a teenager, he became a Hells Angel; his experiences with bikers provided material for many early poems. From 1971, these poems were published in Poetry Review, under the editorship of Eric Mottram
, and by Bob Cobbing
's Writers Forum. He also collaborated on a number of performance poetry
pieces with Cobbing and others.
Griffiths soon started his own imprint, Pirate Press, which published work by himself and other like-minded poets. In addition to Cobbing and other Writers Forum poets, Griffiths listed his early influences as Michael McClure
, Muriel Rukeyser
, John Keats
, George Crabbe
, Gerard Manley Hopkins
, and Old English
poetry.
In 1987, he obtained a Ph.D.
in Old English
from King's College London
. He published a number of editions and translations of Old English texts.
Griffiths was a prolific poet who published widely in Britain
and the United States
. In later years he lived in Seaham, County Durham
, and ran Amra Press, which published his poetry and books of local studies.
Griffiths' books of poetry from other publishers include Rousseau and the Wicked (Invisible Books, London, 1996), Etruscan Reader 5 (with Tom Raworth
and Tom Leonard
) (Etruscan Books, Buckfastleigh, 1997), Nomad Sense (Talus Editions, London, 1998), A Book of Spilt Cities (Etruscan Books, 1999), Ushabtis (Talus, 2001) and Durham and other sequences (West House Books, 2002). A substantial collection of his work was also published in Future Exiles (Paladin 1992). In 2010, Reality Street released Collected Earlier Poems (1966 – 80).
, Newcastle
. He became a highly active assistant editor to Lancaster's 'Northern Review, a Journal of Regional and Cultural Affairs', which lasted ten years. This was a remarkably productive period for Griffiths which saw the publishing of a series of books on north east dialect, beginning with "North East Dialect, Survey and Word list" and "North East Dialect, the Texts" in 1998. Published by the Centre for Northern Studies, these ran to several editions before culminating with A Dictionary of North East Dialect by Northumbria University Press
in 2004. The Dictionary attracted national attention and was hailed as a landmark in the history of English dialects. Griffiths was able to draw upon his vast scholarship of Saxon literature and Old English, providing sophisticated etymologies that drew upon sources as far back as the eighth century.
The Centre was awarded a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005 to continue dialect research which facilitated the publication of three more volumes of dialect studies by Northumbria University Press: Stotties and Spicecake, the Story of North East Cooking, Pitmatic: the talk of the North East Coalfield (a volume that was featured heavily in the media and is credited with capturing for posterity the rapidly disappearing yet distinctive dialect of the northern coalfields. This was followed by the posthumous publication of 'Fishing and Folk: Life and Dialect on the North Sea Coast' in 2008.
Griffiths was working with Bill Lancaster at the time of his death to secure funding for another dialect project on children's games and pastimes. In 2003 the Centre was commissioned by Sage/Music North to catalogue the archive of Northern Sinfonia
and produce a history of the orchestra for the opening of the Sage music centre. A highly skilled archivist and talented classical musician, Griffiths was considered the ideal person to do this work which was completed ahead of schedule. Subsequently, Northern Sinfonia, a Magic of its Own, was published in 2004. His last work at the Centre was the catalogueing of the T. Dan Smith
archive of taped recordings.
Of tangential interest to these projects, it could be noted that Griffiths organised an exhibition in his adopted home of Seaham
which was seen by the Queen on her Golden Jubilee Tour and he published numerous small books and pamphlets dealing with his adopted community.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and Anglo-Saxon
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
scholar associated with the British Poetry Revival
British Poetry Revival
The British Poetry Revival is the general name given to a loose poetry movement in Britain that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The revival was a modernist-inspired reaction to the Movement's more conservative approach to British poetry.-Beginnings:...
.
Overview
Griffiths was born in KingsburyKingsbury
Kingsbury is an area in the London Borough of Brent, northwest London. The name Kingsbury means "The King's Manor".-History:Kingsbury was historically a small parish in the Hundred of Gore and county of Middlesex. Until the nineteenth century it was largely rural with only scattered settlements....
, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
. As a teenager, he became a Hells Angel; his experiences with bikers provided material for many early poems. From 1971, these poems were published in Poetry Review, under the editorship of Eric Mottram
Eric Mottram
Eric Mottram was a teacher, critic, editor and poet who was one of the central figures in the British Poetry Revival.-Early life and education:...
, and by Bob Cobbing
Bob Cobbing
Bob Cobbing was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival.-Early life:...
's Writers Forum. He also collaborated on a number of performance poetry
Performance poetry
Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution.-History:...
pieces with Cobbing and others.
Griffiths soon started his own imprint, Pirate Press, which published work by himself and other like-minded poets. In addition to Cobbing and other Writers Forum poets, Griffiths listed his early influences as Michael McClure
Michael McClure
Michael McClure is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets who read at the famous San Francisco Six Gallery reading in 1955 rendered in barely fictionalized terms in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums...
, Muriel Rukeyser
Muriel Rukeyser
Muriel Rukeyser was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism...
, John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
, George Crabbe
George Crabbe
George Crabbe was an English poet and naturalist.-Biography:He was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the son of a tax collector, and developed his love of poetry as a child. In 1768, he was apprenticed to a local doctor, who taught him little, and in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge...
, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...
, and Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
poetry.
In 1987, he obtained a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
from King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
. He published a number of editions and translations of Old English texts.
Griffiths was a prolific poet who published widely in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In later years he lived in Seaham, County Durham
Seaham
Seaham, formerly Seaham Harbour, is a small town in County Durham, situated south of Sunderland and east of Durham. It has a small parish church, St Mary the Virgin, with a late 7th century Anglo Saxon nave resembling the church at Escomb in many respects. St Mary the Virgin is regarded as one of...
, and ran Amra Press, which published his poetry and books of local studies.
Griffiths' books of poetry from other publishers include Rousseau and the Wicked (Invisible Books, London, 1996), Etruscan Reader 5 (with Tom Raworth
Tom Raworth
Tom Raworth is a London-born poet and visual artist who has published over forty books of poetry and prose since 1966. His works has been translated and published in many countries. Raworth is a key figure in the British Poetry Revival. He lives in Brighton, England.-Early life and work:Raworth...
and Tom Leonard
Tom Leonard (poet)
Tom Leonard is a Scottish poet, best known for his poems written in Glaswegian dialect.Tom Leonard has been part of the Scottish literary renaissance for the past forty years...
) (Etruscan Books, Buckfastleigh, 1997), Nomad Sense (Talus Editions, London, 1998), A Book of Spilt Cities (Etruscan Books, 1999), Ushabtis (Talus, 2001) and Durham and other sequences (West House Books, 2002). A substantial collection of his work was also published in Future Exiles (Paladin 1992). In 2010, Reality Street released Collected Earlier Poems (1966 – 80).
Life, work, and scholarship
Beginning 1996 and up until his dealth, Griffiths worked with Bill Lancaster at the Centre for Northern Studies at Northumbria UniversityNorthumbria University
Northumbria University is an academic institution located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England. It is a member of the University Alliance.- History :...
, Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
. He became a highly active assistant editor to Lancaster's 'Northern Review, a Journal of Regional and Cultural Affairs', which lasted ten years. This was a remarkably productive period for Griffiths which saw the publishing of a series of books on north east dialect, beginning with "North East Dialect, Survey and Word list" and "North East Dialect, the Texts" in 1998. Published by the Centre for Northern Studies, these ran to several editions before culminating with A Dictionary of North East Dialect by Northumbria University Press
Northumbria University Press
Northumbria University Press is the university press of Northumbria University. It is based in Newcastle upon Tyne and publishes a diverse range of books, including publications on language, photography, biography, travel and music....
in 2004. The Dictionary attracted national attention and was hailed as a landmark in the history of English dialects. Griffiths was able to draw upon his vast scholarship of Saxon literature and Old English, providing sophisticated etymologies that drew upon sources as far back as the eighth century.
The Centre was awarded a major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2005 to continue dialect research which facilitated the publication of three more volumes of dialect studies by Northumbria University Press: Stotties and Spicecake, the Story of North East Cooking, Pitmatic: the talk of the North East Coalfield (a volume that was featured heavily in the media and is credited with capturing for posterity the rapidly disappearing yet distinctive dialect of the northern coalfields. This was followed by the posthumous publication of 'Fishing and Folk: Life and Dialect on the North Sea Coast' in 2008.
Griffiths was working with Bill Lancaster at the time of his death to secure funding for another dialect project on children's games and pastimes. In 2003 the Centre was commissioned by Sage/Music North to catalogue the archive of Northern Sinfonia
Northern Sinfonia
The Northern Sinfonia is a British chamber orchestra, based initially in Newcastle upon Tyne, and currently in Gateshead. For the first 46 years of its history, the orchestra gave the bulk of its concerts at the City Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. Since 2004, the orchestra has been resident at The...
and produce a history of the orchestra for the opening of the Sage music centre. A highly skilled archivist and talented classical musician, Griffiths was considered the ideal person to do this work which was completed ahead of schedule. Subsequently, Northern Sinfonia, a Magic of its Own, was published in 2004. His last work at the Centre was the catalogueing of the T. Dan Smith
T. Dan Smith
Thomas Daniel Smith was a British politician who was Leader of Newcastle upon Tyne City Council from 1960 to 1965. He was a prominent figure in the Labour Party in the north east of England, such that he was nicknamed 'Mr Newcastle'...
archive of taped recordings.
Of tangential interest to these projects, it could be noted that Griffiths organised an exhibition in his adopted home of Seaham
Seaham
Seaham, formerly Seaham Harbour, is a small town in County Durham, situated south of Sunderland and east of Durham. It has a small parish church, St Mary the Virgin, with a late 7th century Anglo Saxon nave resembling the church at Escomb in many respects. St Mary the Virgin is regarded as one of...
which was seen by the Queen on her Golden Jubilee Tour and he published numerous small books and pamphlets dealing with his adopted community.
Selected bibliography
- Collected Earlier Poems (1966 – 80), Reality Street, Sussex 2010
- William Rowe (Ed.), The Salt Companion to Bill Griffiths (Salt PublishingSalt PublishingSalt Publishing is an independent publisher whose origins date back to 1990 when poet John Kinsella launched Salt Magazine in Western Australia. The journal rapidly developed an international reputation as a leading publisher of new poetry and poetics...
, 2007) - The Mud Fort, Salt Publishing, 2004
- Durham and other sequences, West House Books, 2002
- Ushabtis, Talus, 2001
- A Book of Spilt Cities, Etruscan Books, Burkfastleigh 1999
- Nomad Sense, Talus Editions, London, 1998
- Etruscan Reader 5, Etruscan Books, Buckfastleigh, 1997
- Rousseau and the Wicked, Invisible Books, London, 1996
- TALISMAN No. 16 Fall 1996 Special Boston/U.K. Issue: a journal of contemporary poetry and poetics
- Future Exiles, Paladin, 1992
External links
- Nomadics: Bill Griffiths (1948-2007) A tribute by poet Pierre JorisPierre JorisPierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator. He left Luxembourg at nineteen and since then has lived in the US, Great Britain, North Africa and France...
: this piece includes the opening section of Griffith's Cycles on Dover Borstal (1974), which Joris published in a magazine he edited in the early 1970s called "SIXPACK". - Death of poet and a scholar: Bill Griffiths an article from a British (Newcastle) paper "The Journal" (reprinted on Pierre Joris's blog).
- Bill Griffiths (1948-2007) this "Cyber-tombeauTombeauA tombeau is a musical composition commemorating the death of a notable individual. The term derives from the French word for "tomb" or "tombstone". The vast majority of tombeaux date from the 17th century and were composed for lute or other plucked string instruments...
" at Silliman's Blog by poet Ron SillimanRon SillimanRon Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet...
includes comments, tributes, and links - Tribute by poet Bill Sherman
- obituary at The Guardian: 22 September 2007 a piece by William Rowe
- Raworth's cyber-tombeau for Griffiths extensive links, photos, and tributes to Griffith at British poet Tom RaworthTom RaworthTom Raworth is a London-born poet and visual artist who has published over forty books of poetry and prose since 1966. His works has been translated and published in many countries. Raworth is a key figure in the British Poetry Revival. He lives in Brighton, England.-Early life and work:Raworth...
's web page - Another tribute an obituary/memoir by friend John MuckleJohn MuckleJohn Muckle is a British writer who has published works of fiction, poetry and criticism.Born in Kingston-upon-Thames, he grew up in the village of Cobham, Surrey, and has lived most of his adult life in Essex and London. After failing his eleven-plus, Muckle attended a local secondary modern...
at PN Review - A History of the Solar System: Fragments of A History of the Solar System a mimeoMimeoMimeo may refer to:* M.I.M.E.O. – an experimental musicgroup* Mimeograph machine...
of a work by Griffiths published by Writers Forum and Pirate Press (1978)