Roy Fisher

Roy Fisher. Courtesy the Project for Innovative Poetry.

Roy Fisher (born 1930) is an English poet and a jazz pianist. He was among the earliest British writers to absorb the poetics of William Carlos Williams and the Black Mountain poets into the British poetic tradition. Fisher was a key precursor of the British Poetry Revival.

Life

Fisher was born in Handsworth, West Midlands, and raised in Birmingham, England. He studied at the University of Birmingham. His early work, including City (1961), a work in which he applies the lessons of Williams' Paterson to the city of Birmingham, was admired in the United States but more or less ignored in his native country. It was because of the negative connotations for outsiders of "Birmingham" that the city's name did not once appear in his early long poem City .

Fisher began to gain recognition in Britain with the publication of Poems, 1955-1980 (1981). Between 1963 and 1971, he worked as Head of English and Drama at Bordesley College of Education. He then moved to the Department of American Studies at Keele University. He retired in 1982, after which he worked as a freelance writer and as a musician.

Fisher's later works include the long poem A Furnace (1986), Poems 1955-1987 (1988), The Dow Low Drop (1996), and Standard Midland (2010).

Recognition

Outside the mainstream, Fisher is regarded by poets such as John Ash, Alan Baker, Peter Robinson and critics like Marjorie Perloff as one of the most important post-war English poets. News for the Ear: A homage to Roy Fisher edited by Peter Robinson and Robert Sheppard appeared in 2000, and a book of critical essays, The Thing about Roy Fisher, edited by John Kerrigan and Peter Robinson, was published the same year.

In 2005 Fisher was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Publications

Poetry

• City. Worcester, UK, & Ventura, CA: Migrant Press, 1961.
• The Ship's Orchestra (prose poems; illustrated by David Jones). London: Fulcrum Press, 1966.
• Ten Interiors with Various Figures. Nottingham, UK: Tarasque Press, 1966.
• The Memorial Fountain. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Northern House, 1968.
• Collected Poems, 1968. London: Fulcrum Press, 1969.
• Metamorphoses. London: Tetrad Press, 1970.
• The Cut Pages. London: Fulcrum Press, 1971.
• Matrix. London: Fulcrum Press, 1971.
• Nineteen Poems and an Interview. Pensnett, UK: Grosseteste, 1975.
• The Thing about Joe Sullivan: Poems, 1971-1977 (1978). Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 1978.
• Poems, 1955-1980. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
• Consolidated Comedies. Durham, UK: Pig Press, 1981.
• Running Changes. Colchester, UK, & Brooklyn, NY: Ampersand Press, 1983.
• A Furnace. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
• Poems 1955–1987. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Top Down Bottom Up (illustrated by Ronald King). London: Circle Press, 1990.
• Birmingham River. Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• The Dow Low Drop: New and selected poems. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 1996.
• The Long and the Short of It: Poems, 1955-2005. Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 2005.
• Standard Midland . Tarset, Northumberland, UK: Bloodaxe Books, 2010.
• Selected Poems (edited by August Kleinzahler). Chicago: Flood Editions, 2011.

Non-fiction

• Authority or Freedom? Probation hostels for adults (with Chas Wilson). Aldershot, Hants, UK: Gower, 1982.
• Interviews Through Time, and selected prose. Kentisbeare, Devon, UK: Shearsman Books, 2000.

Juvenile

• The Half-Year Letters: An alphabet book (illustrated by Ronald King). Guildford, Surrey, UK: Circle Press, 1983.

Edited

Roy Fisher reads 'The Poetry Promise' in Beeston, Nottingham 2010.

• Jeff Nuttall, Selected Poems. Cambridge, UK: Salt Publishing, 2003.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Poems

• Roy Fisher at PoemHunter ("Paraphrases")
• Roy Fisher (United Kingdom 1930) at Poetry International (profile & 3 poems)
• Roy Fisher b. 1930 at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Roy Fisher (b. 1930) at The Poetry Archive

Books

• Roy Fisher at Amazon.com

About

• Roy Fisher at West Midlands Literary Heritage
• Roy Fisher at the PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry) Blog
• Some Aspects of the Poetry of Roy Fisher by J.D. Needham, 1975
• Roy Fisher's Language Book, essay by Marjorie Perloff]
• Ship's Orchestra in verse: Jottings
• An interview with Roy Fisher
• review of The Long and the Short of It by August Kleinzahler
• review of The Long and the Short of It by William Wotton
• review of The Long and the Short of It by Martin Caseley