Gerard Benson
Gerard Benson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gerard John Benson 9 April 1931 London, England |
| Died | 28 April 2014 (aged 83) Oxenhope, Bradford, England |
| Occupations | Poet, teacher and author |
Gerard John Benson (9 April 1931 – 28 April 2014) was an English Quaker poet, teacher, and author. His mother separated from his father Arthur Benson, and he was raised by a family of Christian fundamentalists for the first ten years of his life, thinking they were his parents. Then his mother Eileen married the Romanian-born émigré composer Francis Chagrin and he went to live with them.[1]
Benson had worked as an intelligence decoder in Britain and as an actor, but his vocation was poetry. Originally from London, Benson settled in Bradford in 1989 with his writer/artist wife, Cathy Russell; the couple lived in Manningham.[1][2] He was a member of the Barrow Poets.[3] He was named poet laureate of the City of Bradford (2008)[4] and was a founding editor, with Judith Chernaik and Cicely Herbert, of Poems on the Underground.[5]
Benson died on 28 April 2014, aged 83. Shortly before his death, the 83-year-old had recently returned from the BBC in London where he had made recordings of his poetry for the Poetry Archive.[2][6]
Publications
[edit]- London Poems On The Underground (1996); ISBN 978-0304349029
- To Catch an Elephant (2002); ISBN 978-1902382401
- Omba Bolomba (2005); ISBN 978-1902382708
- Best Poems on the Underground (2009); ISBN 978-0297859079
- A Good Time (2013); ISBN 978-1906613198
References
[edit]- 1 2 Judith Chernaik and Michael Rosen (26 May 2014). "Gerard Benson obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
- 1 2 Griffiths, Kathie (3 May 2014). "Tributes paid to our poet laureate Gerard Benson". Thetelegraphandargus.co.uk. Retrieved 5 May 2014.
- ↑ "Gerard Benson: Award-winning writer and teacher who played a central role in the Poems on the Underground scheme". The Independent. 1 June 2014. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
- ↑ "Tributes paid to our poet laureate Gerard Benson". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. 3 May 2014. Retrieved 3 August 2026.
- ↑ Roberts, Stuart (23 February 2024). "Poems on the Underground archive arrives at Cambridge University Library". University of Cambridge. Retrieved 3 August 2026.
- ↑ Sansom, Ann & Peter (1 May 2014). "Gerard Benson". The Poetry Business. Bank Street Arts. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
External links
[edit]- Notice of death of Gerard Benson, poetrylibrary.org.uk; accessed 5 May 2014.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
.svg){kind=small}  | This article about a writer or poet from the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. |