John Lucas

John Lucas was born in Devon in 1937. He studied at Reading University, and in 1961 was appointed a Junior Lecturer, becoming involved in the Reading University Poetry Press. He also started a cyclostyled magazine for students, Poetry Broadsheet, to encourage the reading and criticism of contemporary poetry. He joined Nottingham University in 1964, where Poetry Broadsheet became Poetry Programme, and in 1965 he began the Byron Press. As a Fulbright Scholar, 1967-8, he spent a year with his wife and two young children in Washington DC, and later Indiana. His debut poetry collection, About Nottingham, was published in 1971. In 1974, his versions of poems for Egil’s Saga were published by Dent/Everyman. His other collections include Studying Grosz on the Bus (1989), Flying to Romania (1992), One for the Piano (1997), On the Track (2000), A World Perhaps: New and Selected Poems (2002) and The Long and the Short of It (2004). In 1977, he was appointed Professor of English at Loughborough University, and in 1978 he became the poetry reviewer for the New Statesman. He also reviewed for the TLS, Poetry Review and other journals. He was Lord Byron Visiting Professor of English, Athens, 1984-5, and also made British Council-sponsored reading lecturing visits to Germany, Romania, Italy and elsewhere. In 1988, he was appointed Chair of the Poetry Book Society. He runs Shoestring Press, based in Nottinghamshire; he also plays cornet with many jazz groups in the area. He is Professor Emeritus at the Universities of Loughborough and Nottingham Trent.