Gavin Selerie
Gavin Selerie | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gavin Selerie 1949 |
| Died | 18 June 2023 (aged 73–74) |
| Citizenship | British |
| Education | Haileybury |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations | Poet, academic |
| Partner | Frances Presley |
Gavin Selerie (1949 – 18 June 2023) was a British poet and academic.
Life
Gavin Selerie was born in Hampstead, London in 1949.[1][2] His father, Peter Selerie, was a wine merchant of Italian extraction who had served with distinction in the Second World War; his mother was Muriel (née Lee).[1][2][3] His father's family had come to London from northern Italy circa 1880, running a restaurant in Wardour Street.[3]
Selerie was educated at Haileybury, where he was 1969 fencing captain.[1][4] He was awarded an Open Law Scholarship and matriculated to Lincoln College, Oxford, where he briefly read history before switching to English literature, and graduated in 1971.[1][2][4][5][6] From 1973 to 1978, he researched Renaissance literature at the University of York, writing an MPhil thesis on The Winter's Tale.[1][2][4][5]
From the 1980s until his retirement in 2004, Selerie taught creative writing, first in the Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London, later at Birkbeck College.[1][2][5]
From the 1990s till his death, his partner was fellow poet Frances Presley.[1][2][7]
Selerie was diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2022 and died of the disease in 2023.[1][7] His funeral was held at Kensal Green Cemetery.[7]
Work
From 1978, Selerie was part of a group of London poets interested in innovative poetic procedures and small press publishing.[5]
Between 1979 and 1983, he conducted and published the Riverside Interviews, book-length colversations with modernist and postmodernist writers including Cid Corman, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg and Jerome Rothenberg.[1][5]
Publications
- Playground for the Working Line (Ziesing Bros., 1981).
- Hymenaei (Binnacle Press, 1981).
- Amergin (Binnacle Press, 1982).
- Azimuth (Binnacle Press, 1984).
- Strip Signals (Galloping Dog, 1986).
- Puzzle Canon (Spectacular Diseases, 1986).
- Elizabethan Overhang (Spectacular Diseases, 1989).
- Southam Street (New River Project, 1991).
- Tilting Square (Binnacle Press, 1992).
- Roxy (West House Books, 1996).
- Epithalamion (Binnacle Press, 1998).
- Vitagraph (Binnacle Press, 2001).
- Le Fanu's Ghost (Five Seasons Press, 2006).
- Music's Duel: New and Selected Poems 1972–2008 (Shearsman, 2009).
- Collected Sonnets (Shearsman, 2019).
- Late Poems (Shearsman, 2025).
Collaborative works
- Danse Macabre, with Alan Halsey et al. (West House Books, 1997).
- Days of '49, with Alan Halsey (West House Books, 1999).
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Robert Hampson, "Gavin Selerie obituary," Guardian (3 August 2023).
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Biography at archiveofthenow.org.
- 1 2 Robert Hampson, "Serious playfulness," P. N. Review, vol. 50, no. 1 (September–October 2023).
- 1 2 3 "Gavin Selerie (E 62) – writer, poet and author of Riverside Interviews," thehaileyburysociety,org (7 December 2023).
- 1 2 3 4 5 The Literary Archive of Gavin Selerie, 1965–2023, licoln.ox.ac.uk.
- ↑ "Gavin Selerie: Spotlight on alumni," english.ox.ac.uk.
- 1 2 3 Frances Presley, "Gavin Selerie," francespresley.co.uk.
- 1949 births
- 2023 deaths
- 20th-century English poets
- 21st-century English poets
- Academics of Birkbeck, University of London
- Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford
- Alumni of the University of York
- British Poetry Revival
- Deaths from glioblastoma
- 20th-century English male poets
- English people of Italian descent
- People educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College
- People from Hampstead
- Writers from the London Borough of Camden
- 21st-century English male poets