Harry Guest (born Henry Bayly Guest; 6 October 1932 – 20 March 2021) was a British poet born in Wales.[1]
Life and career
Harry Guest was educated at
Malvern College and read Modern Languages at
Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He wrote a thesis on
Mallarmé at the
Sorbonne. At Trinity Hall he co-edited the poetry magazine Chequer, which continued for eleven issues and published poems by
Thom Gunn,
Anne Stevenson,
Ted Hughes, and
Sylvia Plath, though there is no evidence to suggest he met Plath or Hughes.[2] From 1955-66, he taught at
Felsted School and
Lancing College, and then moved to Japan, becoming a lecturer in English at
Yokohama National University.[3] He returned to England in 1972 and was Head of French at
Exeter School until his retirement in 1991.[4] A selection of his poetry was included in
Penguin Modern Poets 16. He was an Honorary Research Fellow at the
University of Exeter and was awarded an honorary doctorate (LittD) by
Plymouth University in 1998. Apart from his many collections of poetry, he is well known as a translator from the French and Japanese, and has published several novels and non-fiction books including the Traveller's Literary Companion to Japan (1994) and The Artist on the Artist (2000). His translations include a selected poems of
Victor Hugo, The Distance, The Shadows (2002) and Post-War Japanese Poetry (with Lynn Guest and Kajima Shôzô, 1972). He lived in
Exeter, and was married to the historical novelist Lynn Guest, they have two children.[5][6][7]
Works
A Different Darkness, London: Outposts, 1964
Arrangements, Northwood, UK: Anvil, 1968
The Cutting-Room, London: Anvil, 1970
The Place, Northamptonshire, UK: Sceptre, 1971
Mountain Journal, Sheffield, UK: Rivelin, 1975
A House Against the Night, London: Anvil, 1976
English Poems, London: Words, 1976
Days, London: Anvil, 1978
Elegies, Durham, UK: Pig, 1980
Lost and Found, London: Anvil, 1983
The Emperor of Outer Space, Durham, UK: Pig, 1983
Lost Pictures, Exeter, UK: Albertine, 1991
Coming to Terms, London: Anvil, 1994
So Far, Exeter, UK: Stride, 1998
Versions, Nether Stowey, UK: Odyssey, 1999
A Puzzling Harvest, Collected Poems 1955-2000, London: Anvil, 2002
^"HarryGUEST". Funeral-notices. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
^His co-editors for the first issue were
Michael Bakewell,
Ronald Hayman,
Karl Miller and
Michael Podro; the magazine was later taken over by Malcolm Ballin and Paul McQuial. See Chequer, 1 (1953) and David Miller and Richard Price, British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of Little Magazines, London: The British Library, 2006, 92.
^Edward Lucie-Smith (ed), British Poetry since 1945, Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1970, 363.
^Edward Lucie-Smith (ed), British Poetry since 1945 (revsd edn), Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1985, 233.