Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (19 July 1902 in

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

– 13 May 1962 in

Chelsea, London Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area. Chelsea histori ...

) was an English

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 wri ...

. He went to

Birkenhead School Birkenhead School is an independent, academically-selective, co-educational day school located in Oxton, Wirral, in North West England. The school offers educational opportunities for girls and boys from three months to eighteen years of ag ...

until the age of 14, before being sent to Charterhouse School, but ran away at age 16. From 1922 to 1926 he attended the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, where he read English literature, French, Philosophy and Greek. He later moved to

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 ...

where he worked in bookshops, and also as a copywriter.''Collected Poems'', p. xvi. After avoiding military service in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he later discovered he was unfit for service. He suffered from

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

, and received electro-convulsive therapy. He first began to publish in the 1920s in literary magazines. He was to see three volumes of poetry published during his life: ''Walls of Glass'' in 1934, ''Voices in a Giant City'' in 1947 and ''Selections'' in 1958. He contributed several poems to a 1952 edition of ''Bewick's Birds''. He died in 1962 from a

brain haemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

. In the mid-1970s he was the subject of a radio programme entitled ''Portrait of a Romantic''. This, together with the publication of the posthumous selection ''Not Love Perhaps'' in 1972, increased interest in his work; and his poetry subsequently appeared in school books and anthologies. A 1985 anthology of his work ''The Collected Poems of A. S. J. Tessimond'', edited by Hubert Nicholson, contains previously unpublished works. In 2010 a new collected poems, based closely on Nicholson's edition, was published by Bloodaxe Books. In April 2010 an edition of Brian Patten's series ''Lost Voices'' on

BBC Radio Four BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

was committed solely to Tessimond.

Notes

External links

A.S.J. Tessimond Poetry and Translations
at the Open Translation Project sponsored by Bryant H. McGill

a
The Filter^Review of his collected poems, with biographical information
Mark Ford: The analyst is always right. ''London Review of Books'' 11 November 2011, p. 23. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tessimond, A. S. J. 1902 births 1962 deaths People educated at Charterhouse School People with bipolar disorder People from Birkenhead 20th-century English poets