Peter Riley (born 1940) is a contemporary

English poet This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including Republican Ireland after December 1922. The earliest ...

, essayist, and

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, photographic, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, orga ...

. Riley is known as a Cambridge poet, part of the group loosely associated with J. H. Prynne which today is acknowledged as an important center of innovative poetry in the United Kingdom. Riley was an editor and major contributor to ''

The English Intelligencer ''The English Intelligencer'' was a mid-1960s little magazine devoted to poetry and letters founded and edited by poets Andrew Crozier and Peter Riley. It played a key role in the emergence of many of the poets associated with the British Poetry ...

''. He is the author of ten books of poetry, and many small-press booklets. He is also the current poetry editor of the Fortnightly Review and a recipient of the Cholmondeley Award in 2012 for "achievement and distinction in poetry".

Early life

He was born in

Stockport Stockport is a town and borough in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey here. Most of the town is within ...

, near Manchester, and raised in an environment of working people, Riley "entered higher education through Britain's post-war socialistic educational policies". He read English at

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College (officially "The Master, Fellows and Scholars of the College or Hall of Valence-Mary") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 ...

, and has since lived and worked in the UK and abroad in teaching at several levels and other occupations. A Cambridge resident since 1985, he ran a mail-order poetry book business for almost twenty years.

Career

He has written studies of Jack Spicer, T. F. Powys, improvised music, poetry, lead mines, burial mounds, village carols and Transylvanian string bands, and has published two books of translations from the French poet

Lorand Gaspar Lorand Gaspar (28 February 1925, in Târgu Mureș – 9 October 2019, in Paris) was a Hungarian–born French poet. Life Gaspar was born in February 1925 in Târgu Mureș, Romania. In 1943, he enrolled at Palatine Joseph University of Technolog ...

. He has been an advocate for neglected British poets from the 1930s and 1940s, in particular

Nicholas Moore Nicholas Moore (16 November 1918 – 26 January 1986) was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, whose reputation stood as high as Dylan Thomas’s. He later dropped out of the literary world. Biography Moore was ...

(1918–1986), and he has edited several posthumous books of Moore's. Riley was the co-editor (with

Andrew Crozier Andrew Thomas Knights Crozier (26 July 1943 – 3 April 2008) was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. Life Crozier was educated at Dulwich College, and later Christ's College, Cambridge. His 1976 book ''Pleats'' won the Alice Hu ...

and others) of the important poetry/poetics journal ''The English Intelligencer'' (1965–1968), and editor of the later ''Collection'' (1968–1970). From the 1980s to the 2000s he ran the imprint Poetical Histories, which focussed on brief (4-12pp) pamphlets published on fine paper. Notable publications included J.H. Prynne's ''Marzipan'' and his sole poem in Chinese, ''Jie ban mi Shi Hu''; R. F. Langley's ''Man Jack''; and late work by the older poets

Seán Rafferty Seán Rafferty (born John Dickson Kerr Rafferty; 6 February 1909, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland – 4 December 1993, in Iddesleigh, Devon, England) was a Scotland, Scottish poet, based in England from 1932 until his death. Career Rafferty studied C ...

and

Dorian Cooke Dorian Cooke (25 December 1916 - 18 September 2005) was a poet, MI6 operative, and head of the Yugoslav section at the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious g ...

. In the 1970s Riley was an important early promoter of and advocate for British free improvisation, and the noted guitarist Derek Bailey was a lifelong friend; two of Bailey's late solo albums, ''Takes Fakes & Dead She Dances'' and ''Poetry and Playing'', contain tracks of Bailey playing guitar while reading aloud from Riley's poetry. Several books of Riley's from this period are responses to free jazz and free improvisation: ''The Musicians The Instruments'' (poetry, The Many Press, 1978) and ''Company Week'' (prose, Compatible Recording and Publishing, 1994) in response to Bailey's 1977

Company Week A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...

event, and ''The Whole Band'' (Sesheta, 1972), in response to performances by John Tchicai's Cadentia Nova Danica. This habit of responding to music in his poetry has continued in more recent work, such as the ''Reader/Author/Lecture'' series (with poems for or after

Syd Barrett Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, and musician who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965. Barrett was their original frontman and primary songwriter, becoming known for his ...

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

, John Sheppard and others) and his more recent books concerning music encountered on his travels in Eastern Europe. Riley was the subject of an essay collection, ''The Poetry of Peter Riley'' (The Gig, 1999/2000) and a poetry festschrift, ''April Eye'' (Infernal Methods, 2000).

Excavations & Riley's poetics

''Distant Points'' is a series of prose poems arising from the author's meditations on 19th century excavation reports of prehistoric burial mounds in the north of England. As Riley himself explains, this particular work is: Commenting on this work, American poet and Zukofsky scholar

Mark Scroggins Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Finn ...

offers this insight:

Selected publications

*''Love-Strife Machine'' (Ferry Press, 1969) *''The Linear Journal'' (Grosseteste Press, 1973) *''Strange Family: 12 Songs'' (Burning Deck, Providence, 1973) *''Preparations: 26 Commentaries'' (Curiously Strong, 1979) *''Lines on the Liver'' (Ferry Press, 1981) *''Tracks and Mineshafts'' (Grosseteste Press, 1983) *''Noon Province'' (Poetical Histories, Cambridge, 1989) *''Distant Points: Excavations Part One, Books One and Two'' (Reality Street Editions, 1995) *''Snow has Settled ... Bury Me Here'' (Shearsman Books, 1997) *''Passing Measures'', Selected poems 1966–1996 (Carcanet, 2000) *''Messenger Street'' (Poetical Histories, 2001) ''note'': this is a pamphlet containing four elegies for the poet Douglas Oliver *''The Dance at Mociu'' (Shearsman, 2003) *''Alstonefield: a poem'' (Carcanet, 2003) *''The Day's Final Balance: uncollected writings 1965–2006'' (Shearsman, 2007) *''The Llyn Writings'' (Shearsman, 2007) *''Greek Passages'' (Shearsman, 2009) *''The Derbyshire Poems'' (Shearsman, 2010) ''note'': this is a one-volume reissue of ''Tracks and Mineshafts'' and ''Lines on the Liver'' with additional material *''The Glacial Stairway'' (Carcanet, 2011) *''XIV PIECES'' (Longbarrow Press, 2012) *''The Ascent of Kinder Scout'' (Longbarrow Press, 2014) *''Due North'' (Shearsman, 2015) *''The Fortnightly Reviews: Poetry Notes 2012-2014'' (Odd Volumes, 2015) *''Collected Poems, Vols I & II'' (Shearsman, 2018) *''Truth, Justice, and the Companionship of Owls'' (Longbarrow Press, 2019)

References

External links

April Eye
- Peter Riley's website
Archive of 'Poetry Notes' columns
in The Fortnightly Review
Author Page
at the ''British Electronic Poetry Centre''

interview at

Jacket Magazine ''Jacket'' (now published as ''Jacket2'') is an online literary periodical, which was founded by the Australian poet John Tranter. The first issue was in October 1997. Until 2010, each new number of the magazine was posted at the Web site pi ...