The Group was an informal group of poets who met in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. As a poetic movement in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

it is often seen as being the successor to The Movement.

Cambridge

In November

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

while at

Downing College Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the olde ...

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

Philip Hobsbaum Philip Dennis Hobsbaum (29 June 1932 – 28 June 2005) was a British teacher, poet and critic. Life Hobsbaum was born into a Polish Jewish family in London, and brought up in Bradford, Yorkshire, where he attended Belle Vue Boys' Grammar Sc ...

along with two friends—Tony Davis and Neil Morris—dissatisfied with the way poetry was read aloud in the university, decided to place a notice in the undergraduate newspaper '' Varsity'' for people interested in forming a poetry discussion group. Five others, including

Peter Redgrove Peter William Redgrove (2 January 1932 – 16 June 2003) was a British poet, who also wrote prose, novels and plays with his second wife Penelope Shuttle. Life and career Redgrove was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. He was educated at Ta ...

, came along to the first meeting. This poetry discussion group met once a week during term.

London

When Hobsbaum moved to London, the discussion group reconstituted itself there. It is this London group that is now referred to as ''The Group''. The

meetings started in 1955 once a week, on Friday evenings, at first at Hobsbaum's flat and later at the house of

Edward Lucie-Smith John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith (born 27 February 1933), known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is a Jamaican-born English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster. He has been highly prolific in these fields, writing or editing over a hundred ...

. The poets gathered to discuss each other's work, putting into practice the sort of analysis and objective comment in keeping with the principles of Hobsbaum's Cambridge tutor

F. R. Leavis Frank Raymond "F. R." Leavis (14 July 1895 – 14 April 1978) was an English literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. He taught for much of his career at Downing College, Cambridge, and later at the University of York. Leavis ra ...

and of the New Criticism in general. Before each meeting about six or seven poems by one poet would be typed, duplicated and distributed to the dozen or so participants. There was no manifesto as such. Lucie-Smith wrote, in a letter to Hobsbaum dated November 1961: 'This is a group of poets who find it possible to meet and discuss each other's work helpfully and without backbiting or backscratching…we have no axe to grind — this isn't a gang and there's no monolithic body of doctrine to which everyone must subscribe'. The poets who met included

George MacBeth George Mann MacBeth (19 January 1932 – 16 February 1992) was a Scottish poet and novelist. Biography George MacBeth was born in Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland. When he was three, his family moved to Sheffield in England. He was educated in Sh ...

Alan Brownjohn Alan Charles Brownjohn (born 28 July 1931) is an English poet and novelist. He has also worked as a teacher, lecturer, critic and broadcaster. Life and work Alan Brownjohn was born in London and educated at Merton College, Oxford. He taught in ...

, Peter Porter and

Martin Bell Martin Bell, (born 31 August 1938) is a British UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Ambassador, a former broadcast war reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1997 to 2001. He is sometimes known as " ...

Ted Hughes Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...

occasionally attended.

Lucie-Smith

The chairmanship of the group passed to

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

when Hobsbaum left London to study in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

. The meetings continued at his house in Chelsea, and the circle of poets expanded to include

Fleur Adcock Fleur Adcock (born 10 February 1934) is a New Zealand poet and editor, of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England. She is well-represented in New Zealand poetry anthologies, was awarded an honorary doc ...

, Taner Baybars,

Edwin Brock Edwin Brock (19 October 1927 – 7 September 1997) was a British poet. Brock published ten volumes of poetry from 1959 through his death in 1997. Two of Brock's poems In particular -- ''Five Ways to Kill a Man'' (1972) and ''Song of th ...

, and

Zulfikar Ghose Zulfikar Ghose (March 13, 1935 – June 30, 2022) was a Pakistani-American novelist, poet and essayist. His works are primarily magical realism, blending fantasy and harsh realism. Biography Born in Sialkot, Punjab, which was in British India ...

; others including Nathaniel Tarn circulated poems for comment.The University of Reading collection of papers relating to The Group
/ref> Lucie-Smith and Hobsbaum edited '' A Group Anthology'' (London: Oxford University Press,

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...

); in the foreword the aim is described of writing 'frank autobiographical poems' and a 'poetry of direct experience'. In the anthology's epilogue Hobsbaum writes of the importance of discussion, and the writer's need for 'community to keep him in touch with his audience.' Satire was prominent in the works of Bell, Brownjohn, and Porter.

Next stages

The Belfast Group

When Hobsbaum moved to

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

in 1962 he established a similar group there, sometimes referred to as

The Belfast Group The Belfast Group was a poets' workshop which was organized by Philip Hobsbaum when he moved to Belfast in October 1963 to lecture in English at Queen's University. As with Hobsbaum's earlier discussion group in London, known as The Group, the ...

The Poets' Workshop

After the publication and publicity associated with the publication of the anthology, numbers attending the weekly meetings increased, and the meetings became unworkable. In 1965 the Group was restructured, and the more formal The Poets' Workshop was established under the influence of

Sources

* Garfitt, Roger, "The Group", in ''British Poetry since 1960: A Critical Survey,'' Michael Schmidt,

Grevel Lindop Grevel Charles Garrett Lindop (born 6 October 1948) is an English poet, academic and literary critic. Life Lindop was born in Liverpool to solicitor John Neale Lindop, LL.M. and Winifred (née Garrett), and educated at Liverpool College, then W ...

(editors), Carcanet, 1972, , pages 13–69. * ''The Oxford Literary History'', Volume 12, 1960 – 2000, ''The Last of England?'', Oxford University Press, 2004 * Ousby, Ian (editor), ''Cambridge Paperback Guide to Literature in English'', Cambridge University Press, 1996 * Hobsbaum, Philip, "The Redgrove Momentum: 1952 – 2003", in '' The Dark Horse,'' Summer 2003

Footnotes

External links

University of Texas, Hobsbaum archive

University of Reading, The Group Papers archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Group, The English literary movements 20th-century British literature