A Poet's Choice

Elizabeth Jennings was born in Boston, England. Educated at Oxford High School and St. Anne's College, Oxford, she worked in the Oxford City Library from 1950 to 1958 and then as a reader for the publisher Chatto & Windus. Since 1961 she has been a freelance writer. She lived in Oxford but often visited Italy, where many of her poems are set. After a difficult period, which included stays in a mental hospital, Jennings has written strongly religious verse. She has said that "my Roman Catholic religion and my poems are the most important things in my life."

Jennings is one of the major figures associated with the Movement, one of the most important "movements" in postwar British poetry. Movement poetry is meticulously crafted, controlled and common-sensical, sardonic, lucid, and self-consciously ironic. Jennings writes a restrained, sometimes lapidary, poetry of lucid diction and traditional meters. The Italian setting and profound religious conviction distinguish her work from that of the other Movement writers, as does her more personal and confessional stance. She has done numerous translations, including an interesting version of Michelangelo's sonnets.

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