Lewis Blake is a British

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...

 poet

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 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

. He is a member of the Cambridge School of poetry, and, to a certain extent, 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:...

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Life

Blake was born in Reydon

Reydon

Reydon is a village and civil parish, north-west from Southwold and south east of Wangford in Waveney District and the ceremonial county of Suffolk in England. It has a population of 2,567....

, near Southwold

Southwold

Southwold is a town on the North Sea coast, in the Waveney district of the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the North Sea coast at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is around south of Lowestoft and north-east...

 in Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

 in June 1946. He was educated at City College Norwich

City College Norwich

City College Norwich is a college of further and higher education which is located on Ipswich Road, in Norwich, Norfolk, England. The college has a second site at St Andrews House in Norwich city centre, which is also home to the National Skills Academy for Financial Services. Founded in 1891,...

 before going to read Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and English Literature

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

 at the University of Bristol

University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...

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For some time he worked as a newspaper journalist as a writer of obituaries and a reviewer of literary texts. As well as working as a mainstream journalist he has also written reviews for the academic journals ELH

ELH

ELH: English Literary History is an academic journal established in 1934 and devoted to the study of major works in the English language, particularly British literature. It covers developments in literature through historical, critical, and theoretical methods. The current editor-in-chief is...

 and PMLA.

Works

Blake's works are known for their surreal humour

Surreal humour

Surreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...

, unusual use of subordinate clauses and his borrowing of esoteric, technical words. His poems include such combinations as computer acronyms and file types juxtaposed with hip-hop style speech and literary criticism

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

 and valley girl

Valley girl

Valley Girl is a stereotype leveled at a socio-economic and ethnic class of American women who can be described as colloquial English-speaking and materialistic...

 speak.

Influences

Blake's influences are wide ranging, and his poems contain eclectic references to different cultures. In particular he draws on surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

, dadaism, the contemporary avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 and members of the beat generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

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