Gael Turnbull (7 April 1928 – 2 July 2004) was a Scottish

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

who was an important figure in the

British Poetry Revival "The British Poetry Revival" is the general name given to a loose poetry movement in Britain that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The revival was a modernist-inspired reaction to the Movement's more conservative approach to British poetry. T ...

of the 1960s and 1970s.

Biography

Turnbull was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

and grew up in

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

and in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, where he moved with his parents at the beginning of World War II. He studied

Natural Sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

at Christ's College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, and graduated in

Medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1951. As a doctor and anesthetist, he worked in Ontario; London, England; Ventura, California; Worcester; and Barrow-in-Furness. His poetry first appeared in a book in Canada in 1954. ''Trio,'' an anthology of poems by Turnbull,

Eli Mandel Eli Mandel (December 3, 1922 – September 3, 1992) was a Canadian poet, editor of many Canadian anthologies, and literary academic. Biography Eli Mandel died in relative obscurity. A series of strokes had left him unable to write and, as a r ...

and

Phyllis Webb Phyllis Webb (April 8, 1927 – November 11, 2021) was a Canadian poet and broadcaster. Webb's poetry had diverse influences, ranging from neo-Confucianism to the field theory of composition developed by the Black Mountain poets. Critics have ...

, was published by

Raymond Souster Raymond Holmes Souster (January 15, 1921 – October 19, 2012) was a Canadian poet whose writing career spanned over 70 years. More than 50 volumes of his own poetry were published during his lifetime, and he edited or co-edited a dozen volumes ...

's Contact Press.Phyllis Webb
" Canadian Women Poets, BrockU.ca, Web, 12 April 2011 His poems also appeared in ''Origin,'' Cid Corman's magazine. In 1957, Turnbull started Migrant Press, one of the first British-run presses to focus on poets in the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

tradition. His work was featured in the groundbreaking Revival anthology '' Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain'' (1969). His own books include ''A Gathering of Poems 1950-1980'' (1983) and ''Rattle of Scree: Poems'' (1997). He was also published in the anthologies '' The New British Poetry'' (1988), '' Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970'' (1999) and ''

Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry ''Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry'' is a poetry anthology edited by Keith Tuma, and published in 2001 by Oxford University Press. Tuma is an American academic, and author of the somewhat despairing ''Fishing by Obstinate ...

'' (2001). He returned to Edinburgh after he retired from medical practice in 1989. In this city, he worked on what he termed kinetic poems; texts for installation in which the movement of the reader and/or of the text became part of the reading experience. He died on a visit to

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

of a sudden brain hemorrhage. In 2006, Turnbull's collected poems, ''There Are Words'', were published by Shearsman Books.

Selected bibliography

* ''Trio: First Poems by Gael Turnbull, Phyllis Webb, and Eli Mandel'', with

and

. Toronto: Contact Press (1954). * ''If a Glance Could Be Enough''. 16 pages. SATIS (Malcolm Rutherford) (1978). * ''A Gathering of Poems 1950-1980''. Anvil Press Poetry Ltd (1983). * ''Circus'', edited by Pamela Scott. Limited signed ed (50) edition (December 1984). IBN 0951085409 * ''From the Language of the Heart: Some Imitations from the Gaelic of Sine Reisideach''. Gnomon Distribution, 1985. * ''While Breath Persist''. 160 pages. Porcupine's Quill (1991). * ''To the Tune of Annie Laurie: Poems''. 16 pages. Akros Publications (April 1995). * ''Helen Macdonald/Gael Turnbull/Nicholas Johnson'' by Helen Macdonald, Gael Turnbull and

Nicholas Johnson Nicholas Johnson (born September 23, 1934) is an American academic and lawyer. He wrote ''How to Talk Back to Your Television Set'' and was a Federal Communications Commission commissioner from 1966 to 1973. He is retired from teaching at the Un ...

. 118 pages. Etruscan Books (January 1997). * ''Rattle of Scree: Poems''. 20 pages. Akros Publications (Oct 1997). * ''Transmutations''. 23 pages. Shoestring Press (October 1998). * ''A Perception of Ferns'', illustrated by Raine Clarke. 16 pages. Essence Press (Sept. 2003). * ''The Storey's Story: Memories, Stories, Poems, Images'', with

Rodge Glass Rodge Glass (born 17 January 1978 in Cheshire) is a British writer. Biography Glass was born in Cheshire, Cheshire, England. He attended an "an Orthodox Jewish Primary School, an 11+ All Boys Grammar School, a Co-Ed Private School, a Monk-sponsor ...

and

Jacob Polley Jacob Polley (born 1975) is a British poet and novelist. He has published four collections of poetry. His novel, ''Talk of the Town'', won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2009. His latest poetry collection, ''Jackself'', won the T.S. Eliot Prize ...

, edited by Rodge Glass. Lancaster Litfest Publications (November, 2004). * ''There Are Words: Collected Poems''. 496 pages. Shearsman Books (2006) * ''More Words: Gael Turnbull on Poets & Poetry''. 204 pages. Edited by Jill Turnbull and Hamish White. Shearsman Books (15 September 2012). Reviews, essays, memoirs and journal pieces. Introduction by Jill Turnbull.

References

External links

Gael Turnbull at the BEPC

Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wr ...

discusses the work of Turnbull, particularly ''There Are Words: Collected Poems'', on his popular weblog
Gael Turnbull Letters to Cid Corman and Miscellaneous Papers
MSS 45
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library.
Records of Gael Turnbull are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books

Finding aid to Gael Turnbull letters, 1956-1969, at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
* Archives of Gael Turbul
(Gael Turnbull fonds, R11823)
are held at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is th ...

. Fonds consists of correspondence {{DEFAULTSORT:Turnbull, Gael 1928 births 2004 deaths Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania alumni British Poetry Revival Writers from Edinburgh 20th-century Scottish poets Scottish male poets 20th-century British male writers 21st-century British male writers Medical doctors from Edinburgh