Blake Morrison (Philip Blake Morrison) Biography

British poetand critic, born in Burnley, Lancashire, educated at the University of Nottingham and University College, London. He was poetry and fiction editor with the Times Literary Supplement from 1978 to 1981, when he joined the staff of the Observer. In 1990 he became literary editor of the Independent on Sunday. Dark Glasses (1984), his first collection of verse, contained work of impressive range, including numerous inventive treatments of domestic and personal material. The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper appeared in 1987; its title poem, which incorporates elements of Yorkshire dialect, forms a remarkable critique of the misogyny implicit in traditional male attitudes and assumptions. Other poems in the book demonstrated his increasing skill in the use of startlingly original imagery of the type associated with Martian poetry. Among his critical writings are The Movement: English Poetry and Fiction of the 1950s (1980), the most definitive consideration of its subject available, and the monograph Seamus Heaney (1982). With Andrew Motion, he edited The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry (1982). A memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, appeared in 1994.