J. H. Prynne (Jeremy Halward Prynne) Biography

British poet, born in Kent, educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1962 he became a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he also became a lecturer and College Librarian. Prynne's numerous collections of poetry include Kitchen Poems (1968), The White Stones (1969), Brass (1971), High Pink on Chrome (1975), The Oval Window (1983), and Word Order (1989); Poems (1982) presents work from twelve preceding books with the addition of previously uncollected material. His elegantly cadenced poetry creates an appearance of urbane discourse, but consistently challenges his readers' assumptions concerning meaning through a range of strategies that make much of his work resistant to paraphrase. A vibrant precision of imagery and strong suggestions of mood and atmosphere are among the qualities by which his verse commands interest. Frequent use of terminologies from science and economics gives Prynne's idiosyncratic writing an impressionistic breadth of reference to social and cultural concerns. The relationship between money and personal identity is imaginatively analysed in two of his more accessible poems, ‘Die a Millionaire’ and ‘A Sketch for a Financial Theory of the Self’. He is regarded as a leading exponent of poetic postmodernism.