Judith Kazantzis
Encyclopedia
Life
She grew up in East SussexEast Sussex
East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
, the daughter of Lord
Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford
Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford KG, PC , known as the Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician, author, and social reformer...
and Lady Longford, and sister of Antonia Fraser
Antonia Fraser
Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, DBE , née Pakenham, is an Anglo-Irish author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction, best known as Antonia Fraser...
.
She took a Modern History degree and on 22 February 1998, married lawyer and writer Irving Weinman; Harry Mathews
Harry Mathews
Harry Mathews is an American author of various novels, volumes of poetry and short fiction, and essays.-Life:Born in New York City to an upper class family, Mathews was educated at private schools there and at the Groton School in Massachusetts before enrolling at Princeton University in 1947...
wrote an Epithalamium
Epithalamium
Epithalamium refers to a form of poem that is written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber...
for Judith Kazantzis and Irving Weinman. They have two children.
She worked for the Chelsea Labour Party, and reviewed for the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
. During the 1970s she turned to poetry, fiction, painting and printmaking. She lived in London, and spent three months a year in Key West
Key West
Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida on the North American continent at the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys. Key West is home to the southernmost point in the Continental United States; the island is about from Cuba....
. Around 2000, she returned to live in Lewes
Lewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
, in East Sussex.
In the 1990s she worked for Kalayaan
Kalayaan (charity)
Kalayaan is a United Kingdom charity which works with and to support migrant domestic workers in the UK. The word 'kalayaan' means 'freedom' in Tagalog, with over 200,000 Filipinos working in the UK as domestic workers.Kalayaan won the 2006 Centre for...
- Justice for Migrant Domestic Workers. In 1999 she left Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
’s Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
, and since 2001 helped to campaign for Occupied Palestine. In 2003, she signed the Statement for Peace of the 21st Key West Literary Seminar
Key West Literary Seminar
The Key West Literary Seminar is a writers' conference and festival held each January in Key West, Florida. It draws an international audience for readings, panel discussions, and workshops.-History:...
.
In August 2010 Kazantzis contributed to an eBook collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse - Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State edited by Alan Morrison
Alan Morrison (poet)
-Overview of works:Morrison's work belongs to no particular school, but owes some debt to fairly unconventional influences such as John Davidson and Harold Monro, as well as Welsh poets Alun Lewis and Dylan Thomas....
Her poems have appeared in London Magazine, Stand, Ambit, Agenda, Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Bete Noire, The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry Ireland, Red Pepper, The Independent, The New Statesman, Tribune, and Banipal
Banipal
Banipal is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Arab literature through translations in English. It was founded in London in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon. The magazine is published three times a year...
.
Awards
- 2005-06 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Sussex University
- 2007 Society of Authors’ Cholmondeley AwardCholmondeley AwardThe Cholmondeley Award is an annual award for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the late Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966...
Poetry
- Lets Pretend (1984 Virago)
- Touch Papers (with Michele Roberts and Michelene Wandor, 1982, Allison and Busby).
Anthologies
- Christmas Cards (Enitharmon Press, 2005)
- A Celebration of Wilfred Owen (The Interpreters House)
- Poems On The Underground (Cassells 2001)
- Parents (Enitharmon 2000)
- Red Sky At Night (Many Leaves Press, 2003)
- A Ring of Words (Arvon Prize Anthology 1998)
- Mind Readings, Dancing in the Street, The Faber Book of Blue Verse and the Virago Book of Love Poetry.
- Poems On The Underground featured her poem 'Freight Song', (Cassell).
- Serpents Tail Anthologies. (short stories)