This volume will be warmly welcomed by the many admirers of John Tripp. A well known and popular figure on the poetry scene, his untimely death in 1986 meant the loss of a 'devoted and passionate poet', as John Ormond calls him in the Introduction to this book.
Pithy, regretful, bitter, angry, at times tender, John Tripp's poetry was always engaged with the issues which most mattered to him. In the Seventies it was Welsh nationalism and the possibilities raised by the devolution vote in 1979. Following defeat in that referendum Tripp was increasingly moved by the economic and social dereliction of the early Eighties.
Selected Poems draws on all John Tripp's books, together with work published since the last of those collections, Passing Through (1984), and previously unpublished poems. It is edited by his friend and fellow poet, John Ormond.
John Tripp (1927-1986) was born in Bargoed, Glamorgan. He was a journalist with the BBC, Press Officer at the Indonesian Embassy and an information officer at the Central Office of Information in a varied career. Returning to Wales in the late 1960s he worked as a freelance journalist, and was for some years literary editor of Planet. Tripp was a popular performer of his work, and a leading figure in literary affairs in Wales. A short story writer as well as a poet, his previous books include The Province of Belief, The Inheritance File and Collected Poems (1978). A selection of his poetry has also appeared in the Penguin Modern Poets series.
Pithy, regretful, bitter, angry, at times tender, John Tripp's poetry was always engaged with the issues which most mattered to him. In the Seventies it was Welsh nationalism and the possibilities raised by the devolution vote in 1979. Following defeat in that referendum Tripp was increasingly moved by the economic and social dereliction of the early Eighties.
Selected Poems draws on all John Tripp's books, together with work published since the last of those collections, Passing Through (1984), and previously unpublished poems. It is edited by his friend and fellow poet, John Ormond.
John Tripp (1927-1986) was born in Bargoed, Glamorgan. He was a journalist with the BBC, Press Officer at the Indonesian Embassy and an information officer at the Central Office of Information in a varied career. Returning to Wales in the late 1960s he worked as a freelance journalist, and was for some years literary editor of Planet. Tripp was a popular performer of his work, and a leading figure in literary affairs in Wales. A short story writer as well as a poet, his previous books include The Province of Belief, The Inheritance File and Collected Poems (1978). A selection of his poetry has also appeared in the Penguin Modern Poets series.