Sylvia Kantaris Biography

British poet, born in Grindleford, Derbyshire, educated at Bristol University and the University of Queensland. Her collections of poetry include Time and Motion (1975), The Tenth Muse (1983), The Sea at the Door (1985), Dirty Washing: New and Selected Poems (1989), and Lad's Love (1993). She has also produced two books in collaboration with other poets: News from the Front (1983), written with D. M. Thomas, deals candidly with failures of communication in an erotic relationship; The Air Mines of Mistila (1988), her work with Philip Gross, is a highly imaginative parable of man's greed for natural resources, set in a fictitious South American territory. Much of Kantaris's writing has a refreshing vitality and directness; seriousness of purpose and a ready wit frequently co-exist in the treatments of personal relations, natural phenomena, and social contingencies that form the basis of many of her poems.