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| Geoffrey Godbert obituary | Geoffrey Godbert obituary |
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| William Oxley | |
| Tue 1 Aug 2017 12.00 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 19.10 GMT | |
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| Geoffrey Godbert, who has died aged 80, published more than a dozen collections of his own poetry; was joint editor of the Greville Press with Harold Pinter and Anthony Astbury; and produced two very successful anthologies, 100 Poems by a Hundred Poets (1986) and 99 Poems in Translation (1994). | Geoffrey Godbert, who has died aged 80, published more than a dozen collections of his own poetry; was joint editor of the Greville Press with Harold Pinter and Anthony Astbury; and produced two very successful anthologies, 100 Poems by a Hundred Poets (1986) and 99 Poems in Translation (1994). |
| Asked in an interview what was the worst rejection he had suffered from a publisher, he said it was that by Oxford University Press in the late 1950s, namely: “Some of your poems are not poems at all.” Asked if he had had any regrets about pursuing a “career” as a poet, he replied that he had none but, like Coleridge, advised that one should also “take a day job”. | Asked in an interview what was the worst rejection he had suffered from a publisher, he said it was that by Oxford University Press in the late 1950s, namely: “Some of your poems are not poems at all.” Asked if he had had any regrets about pursuing a “career” as a poet, he replied that he had none but, like Coleridge, advised that one should also “take a day job”. |
| Geoffrey was born in Stretford, Manchester, son of Harold and Dorothy. His father, who was employed in the Lancashire cotton trade and was also an accomplished pianist and singer, knew my father, and Geoffrey and I first encountered one another in the village of Holcombe Brook, when he was about four and I was younger. | Geoffrey was born in Stretford, Manchester, son of Harold and Dorothy. His father, who was employed in the Lancashire cotton trade and was also an accomplished pianist and singer, knew my father, and Geoffrey and I first encountered one another in the village of Holcombe Brook, when he was about four and I was younger. |
| When Geoffrey left Bury grammar school, instead of university his father encouraged him to attend the Royal Manchester College of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music), to train as a singer. But, having been drawn into poetry at school, and though he recognised the affinity between song- and poem-making, Geoffrey moved to London. Realising he could not make a living solely from writing poems, he joined the publicity department of the publisher Bodley Head. Next he got a job working for Rediffusion TV on the music programme Ready Steady Go! Thereafter he made his way fitfully in the world of PR and media. | When Geoffrey left Bury grammar school, instead of university his father encouraged him to attend the Royal Manchester College of Music (now the Royal Northern College of Music), to train as a singer. But, having been drawn into poetry at school, and though he recognised the affinity between song- and poem-making, Geoffrey moved to London. Realising he could not make a living solely from writing poems, he joined the publicity department of the publisher Bodley Head. Next he got a job working for Rediffusion TV on the music programme Ready Steady Go! Thereafter he made his way fitfully in the world of PR and media. |
| His first collection, Ides of March (1975), attracted the attention of WS Graham and George Barker, two poets especially liked by Pinter; in turn, it drew Pinter to Geoffrey’s work. When Geoffrey and his friend Astbury, a schoolmaster and poet, decided soon afterwards to found a small press named after the 17th-century poet Fulke Greville, Pinter became involved. For many years, with his aid as patron, they were able to publish fine press editions. | His first collection, Ides of March (1975), attracted the attention of WS Graham and George Barker, two poets especially liked by Pinter; in turn, it drew Pinter to Geoffrey’s work. When Geoffrey and his friend Astbury, a schoolmaster and poet, decided soon afterwards to found a small press named after the 17th-century poet Fulke Greville, Pinter became involved. For many years, with his aid as patron, they were able to publish fine press editions. |
| In the late 60s, when I was living in London, my father had mentioned in a letter that I ought to “keep an eye open” for Geoffrey’s work; and I did spot one poem of his in the Poetry Review, titled Thanks for the Memory. It began “At the great smasheroo / lechers will shade their genitals …”, a ban-the-bomb bit of bombast, I thought, with the result that it was to be another 20 years before I met with any further poems of his, so that my doing proper critical justice to Geoffrey’s poetry was somewhat delayed. | In the late 60s, when I was living in London, my father had mentioned in a letter that I ought to “keep an eye open” for Geoffrey’s work; and I did spot one poem of his in the Poetry Review, titled Thanks for the Memory. It began “At the great smasheroo / lechers will shade their genitals …”, a ban-the-bomb bit of bombast, I thought, with the result that it was to be another 20 years before I met with any further poems of his, so that my doing proper critical justice to Geoffrey’s poetry was somewhat delayed. |
| Then I came across Journey to the Edge of Light (1985), a volume of his selected poems. From the title alone, I was hooked by its metaphysical implication and its adventurous suggestibility. True, on reading it I found something of “the great smasheroo” still there, not the poem but something of its spirit; but I saw straight away that a driving angst, coupled with a wide experience of European and American literature, had moved the writer far from his 1960s experimental posing. | Then I came across Journey to the Edge of Light (1985), a volume of his selected poems. From the title alone, I was hooked by its metaphysical implication and its adventurous suggestibility. True, on reading it I found something of “the great smasheroo” still there, not the poem but something of its spirit; but I saw straight away that a driving angst, coupled with a wide experience of European and American literature, had moved the writer far from his 1960s experimental posing. |
| Here were poems that had to be written. Lines such as | Here were poems that had to be written. Lines such as |
| seemed both to comment upon the business of poem-making itself and to emit a deeply human and spiritual feeling about existence. There was a traditional beauty now in the poet’s work. | seemed both to comment upon the business of poem-making itself and to emit a deeply human and spiritual feeling about existence. There was a traditional beauty now in the poet’s work. |
| Geoffrey confessed that his poetry “began as therapy” (a notion he persuasively defended for all poetry in a debate at the Torbay festival in 2005). It seemed to me he had long known what he was doing: he was angst-driven, but a clear witness, too. A neo-romantic, he travelled in company with that austere platonist Wallace Stevens and the hermetic neurotic Marina Tsvetaeva until he became firmly an English poet, shaped by and shaping its tradition. | Geoffrey confessed that his poetry “began as therapy” (a notion he persuasively defended for all poetry in a debate at the Torbay festival in 2005). It seemed to me he had long known what he was doing: he was angst-driven, but a clear witness, too. A neo-romantic, he travelled in company with that austere platonist Wallace Stevens and the hermetic neurotic Marina Tsvetaeva until he became firmly an English poet, shaped by and shaping its tradition. |
| In the 1990s, Geoffrey ceased to be involved in the Greville Press (though its work continues), and in 2000 he moved from Islington, London, to Milverton, Somerset, with his partner, Jenny Fry. She survives him, as do his daughter, Ursula, from his marriage to Rose Kenny, which ended in divorce, and his son, William, from a later relationship, with Sandra Grantham. | In the 1990s, Geoffrey ceased to be involved in the Greville Press (though its work continues), and in 2000 he moved from Islington, London, to Milverton, Somerset, with his partner, Jenny Fry. She survives him, as do his daughter, Ursula, from his marriage to Rose Kenny, which ended in divorce, and his son, William, from a later relationship, with Sandra Grantham. |
| • Geoffrey Godbert, poet, born 11 June 1937; died 3 July 2017 | • Geoffrey Godbert, poet, born 11 June 1937; died 3 July 2017 |
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