Poet 8:

[Peter Reading]

Peter Reading
(1946-2011)

‘Muse, sing the grotty. Scant alternative’
– Peter Reading, Ukulele Music (1985)

Peter Reading, the so-called “laureate of grot,” was a very prolific and original English poet who first became widely known after the publication of his book Perduta gente [Lost People], a condemnation of the cardboard cities and nuclear obsessions of Mrs. Thatcher’s Britain, in 1989.

Reading’s work is extremely self-referential and self-aware, and the fact that each of his books speaks in a multitude of voices means that he has himself tended to define the terms in which it is discussed.

He won the Cholmondeley Award for Poetry in 1978, the Dylan Thomas award in 1983, the Whitbread Prize for Poetry in 1986, and the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry in 1990, and in 1998-99 held the first Lannan Foundation Literary Residency. He died on 17 November, 2011, at the age of 65.

[Lannan Foundation]

Author Pages:

• Bloodaxe Books


• Contemporary Writers


• Peter Reading reading Civil (2002) [Video Recording]


• Peter Reading reading ∂ (2003) [Video Recording]


• Peter Reading reading -273.15 (2005) [Video Recording]


• Peter Reading reading Vendange Tardive (2010) [Video Recording]

[Contemporary Writers
(Photograph: Jay Shuttleworth)]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

1. Water and Waste. UK: Outposts Magazine, 1970.
2. For the Municipality's Elderly. London: Secker & Warburg, 1974.
3. The Prison Cell and Barrel Mystery. London: Secker & Warburg, 1976.
4. Nothing for Anyone. London: Secker & Warburg, 1977.
5. Fiction. London: Secker & Warburg, 1979.
6. Tom O'Bedlam's Beauties. London: Secker & Warburg, 1981.
7. 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5. Ceolfrith Press, 1983.
8. Diplopic. London: Secker & Warburg, 1983.
9. C. London: Secker & Warburg, 1984.
10. Ukelele Music. London: Secker & Warburg, 1985.
11. Essential Reading. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986.
12. Stet. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986.
13. Final Demands. London: Secker & Warburg, 1988.
14. Perduta Gente. London: Secker & Warburg, 1989.
15. Shitheads. Squirrelprick Press, 1990.
16. Three in One. London: Chatto & Windus, 1991.
17. Evagatory. London: Chatto & Windus, 1992.
18. Last Poems. London: Chatto & Windus, 1994.
19. Collected Poems Volume 1: 1970-84. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1995.
20. Penguin Modern Poets 3 (Mick Imlah, Glyn Maxwell, Peter Reading). Harmndsworth: Penguin, 1995.
21. Collected Poems Volume 2: 1985-96. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1996.
22. Chinoiserie. Bay Press, 1997.
23. Work in Regress. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1997.
24. Apophthegmatic. Bay Press, 1999.
25. Ob. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1999.
26. Repetitions. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University, 1999.
27. Marfan. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2000.
28. Faunal. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2002.
29. Collected Poems: 1997-2003. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2003.
30. -273.15. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2005.
31. Vendage Tardive. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2010.

Secondary Literature:

32. Martin, Isabel. Reading Peter Reading. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2000.

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