A professional man of letters - critic, editor, biographer - though never a professional poet, Ian Hamilton (1938-2001) referred to his poems as 'miraculous lyrical arrivals', and he bided their time with exemplary patience and humility.
Ian Hamilton was born in 1938, in King's Lynn, Norfolk, and educated at Darlington Grammar School and Keble College, Oxford. In 1962, he founded the influential poetry magazine, the Review, and he was later editor of the New Review. He also wrote biographies and journalism, mainly about literature and football. He died in 2001.
Alan Jenkins has published five collections of poetry, of which the most recent is A Shorter Life (2005); he was a poetry critic for the Observer and the Independent on Sunday from 1985 to 1990, and is deputy editor of the Times Literary Supplement.
'A uniquely lyrical, passionate and sorrowing voice. There's no one better at describing a world by inference: his diction and cadences draw you in immediately.' David Harsent
'A great editor, a moving poet, and a critic of unfailing judgement.' Blake Morrison, Guardian
