About the Author

 

“Smith’s image for the poet’s activity is repeatedly that of Benjamin’s chiffonier… rag-picking in the junkyard of history, or Levi-Strauss’s bricoleur, beachcombing on the shores of a vast sea, in each case making new uses of the debris recovered from the past.”
Stan Smith, “Ken Smith’s Constellations,” in Brit Poetry from 50s to 90s

The other shadow | Journey without maps | Hungarian Quartet

Ken Smith, one of England’s most prominent poets, is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, a fictional work (A Book of Chinese Whispers, 1986), and two works of non-fiction (Inside Time, 1989, and Berlin: Coming in from the Cold, 1990). He was a recipient of the Lannan Foundation Award for poetry in 1997 and of the Cholmondely Award for poetry in 1998. His most recent collection of poems, Wild Root (1998), was the autumn 1998 Poetry Book Society Choice, and was nominated for the 1999 T.S. Eliot Award. From 1963 to1969, Smith worked as co-editor of the Stand, and was the founding editor of the South West Review from 1976 to 1978. He was writer-in-residence at Clark University (1972-1973), Leeds University (1976 –1978), and Kingston Polytechnic (1979-1981).

Smith’s verses come to us from a no-man's land that lies in-between placement and displacement. His fascination with languages and mobility makes him constantly wanting to be somewhere else. He has given readings of his poems in Italy, Hungary, Germany, Russia, North America, and the United Kingdom. On a rainy Colombian night, he held a poetry reading in the city square in Medellin, and wrote about inmates from Her Majesty’s Prison in Wormwood Scrubs (Wormwood, 1987). In his journey through time, he whispered Tender to the Queen of Spain (1993). In Transylvania, he collected stones “veined with the shapes of letters” and arranged them into a farewell message. He lives in East London, on the District line, one stop short of Barking.