Peter Redgrove (Peter William Redgrove) Biography

British poet and novelist, born in Kingston, Surrey; he read Natural Sciences at Queens' College, Cambridge and subsequently worked as a scientific journalist. He was a founding member of the Group in 1956. After holding visiting posts at the University of New York and the University of Leeds from 1961 to 1965, he became poet-in-residence at Falmouth School of Art. He married Penelope Shuttle in 1980; among the works they wrote in collaboration are The Wise Wound (1978), a study of the psychology of menstruation; Alchemy for Women (1995); and The Terrors of Dr Treviles (1974), a novel whose elements of fantasy and occultism are equally characteristic of Redgrove's prose fictions, which include In the Country of the Skin (1973) and The Beekeepers (1980). His first collection of poetry, The Collector (1960), was followed by numerous volumes, notably The Force (1966), Dr Faust's Sea-Spiral Spirit (1972), The Weddings at Nether Powers (1979), and Dressed as for a Tarot Pack (1990). The Moon Disposes: Poems 1954–1987 appeared in 1987. His earlier work contained numerous treatments of domestic themes which identified tensions between the rational surfaces of events and latent senses of fear and wonderment. Disquieting dramatic monologues achieved prominence in The Force, anticipating his subsequent preoccupation with mystical and magical themes. His poetry is notable for its imaginatively flamboyant imagery and disciplined technical originality. Recent collections of poems include Under the Reservoir (1992) and My Father's Trapdoors (1994). Selected short stories appeared in The Cyclopean Mistress (1993).