Veronica Forrest-Thomson
Veronica Elizabeth Marian Forrest-Thomson (28 November 1947 – 26 April 1975) was a Scottish poet and a critical theorist. Her 1978 study Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry was reissued in 2016.
Also recorded as Veronica Elizabeth Marian Forrest Thomson · Veronica Elizabeth Marian Forrest-Thomson
Veronica Forrest-Thomson
- Name
- Veronica Forrest-Thomson
- Born
- 28 November 1947
- Birthplace
- Malaya
- Died
- 26 April 1975
- Education
- University of Liverpool; Girton College, University of Cambridge
- Occupation
- poet, critical theorist
- Full name
- Veronica Elizabeth Marian Forrest-Thomson.
- Nationality
- United Kingdom
- Languages
- English
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wikidata · Q7922409 · wikipedia · Veronica Forrest-Thomson
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Veronica Forrest-Thomson • Born — 28 November 1947 • Birthplace — Malaya • Died — 26 April 1975 • Education — University of Liverpool; Girton College, University of Cambridge • Occupation — poet, critical theorist • Notable Works — Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry
Life and education
Life and education
Veronica was born in Malaya to a rubber planter, John Forrest Thomson, and his wife, Jean, but grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. She opted to hyphenate her surname, having originally been published under the name Veronica Forrest. She studied at the University of Liverpool (BA, 1968) and Girton College, Cambridge (PhD, 1971) where her first supervisor was the poet J. H. Prynne. Her Cambridge friends included the poets Wendy Mulford and Denise Riley. Forrest-Thomson later taught at the universities of Leicester and Birmingham.
Writings
Forrest-Thomson's critical study Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry was published by Manchester University Press in 1978. It was reissued with notes and an introduction by Gareth Farmer in 2016 with Shearsman press. Her poetry collections included Identi-kit (1967), the award-winning Language-Games (1971) and the posthumous On the Periphery (1976). Subsequent gatherings of her work include Collected Poems and Translations (1990) and Selected Poems (1999). A further Collected Poems, minus the translations, was published in 2008 by Shearsman Books with Allardyce Books. Forrest-Thomson died in her sleep on 26 April 1975 at the age of 27, after an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol. She was married to the writer and academic Jonathan Culler from 1971 to 1974; he became the executor of her literary estate. In November 2019 the academic and poet Gareth Farmer replaced Culler as literary executor.
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The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Veronica Forrest-Thomson, revision 1371776992 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.https://books.google.com/books?id=QLlaAAAAMAAJ&q=Veronica+Forrest-Thompson+and+language+poetry Alison Mark, Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Language Poetry, 2001
- 2.Janus: Papers of Veronica Forrest-Thomson. janus.lib.cam.ac.uk.
- 3.The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women, Elizabeth L. Ewan et al, 2006, Edinburgh University Press, p. 125.
- 4.Virginia Blane, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, eds, The Feminist Companion to Literature in English (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 387,
- 5.COLLECTED POEMS – Veronica Forrest-Thomson: Small Press Distribution.
- 6.Alison Mark, Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Language Poetry p. xi.
- 7.PN Review.
- 8.The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women, Elizabeth L. Ewan et al, 2006, Edinburgh University Press, p. 125.
- 9.Alison Mark, Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Language Poetry, 2001.
- 10.Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Collected Poems, Shearsman Books and Allardyce Books, 2008.
- 11.Dr Gareth Farmer | University of Bedfordshire.
- 12.Currently, Dr Gareth Farmer, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bedfordshire, is the literary executor, who in 2013 organised the establishment of the Veronica Forrest-Thomson Archive at Girton College Library, Cambridge. https://www.beds.ac.uk/howtoapply/departments/education-and-english-language/staff/gareth-farmer/.
- 13.Papers of Veronica Forrest-Thomson, 1937–2011, held at the Girton College Archive https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/19/archival_objects/370739.
- 14.Harriet Staff, 'Introducing the Veronica Forrest-Thomson Archive', Poetry Foundation, 2 July 2013 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/07/introducing-the-veronica-forrest-thomson-archive-.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 12
- Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Collected Poems and Translations, 1990
- Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-century Poetry, 1978
- Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-century Poetry, ed. Gareth Farmer, 2016
- Alison Mark, Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Language Poetry, 2001
- Gareth Farmer, Veronica Forrest-Thomson: Poet on the Periphery, 2017. https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319627212#aboutAuthors.
- Gareth Farmer, Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Poetic Artifice and the Struggle with Forms (Sussex: unpublished PhD thesis) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/39713/
- Gareth Farmer, "Veronica Forrest-Thomson's 'Cordelia', Tradition and the Triumph of Artifice", Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, 1.1 (September, 2009) pp. 55–78
- Gareth Farmer, "The slightly hysterical style of University talk: Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Cambridge", Cambridge Literary Review 1.1 (September, 2009), pp. 161–177
- Isobel Armstrong, The Radical Aesthetic, 2000
- Jane Dowson and Alice Entwistle, A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry, 2005
- Alison Mark, "Poetic Relations and Related Poetics: Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Charles Bernstein" in Romana Huk (ed.), Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally, 2003
- Christian R. Gelder, "Veronica Forrest-Thomson's ABC of Atoms: Poetry, Knowledge, Technique", Cambridge Quarterly, 51.1, (March, 2022), pp. 1–19
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Studied at
2- University of CambridgeOrganisation
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- University of LiverpoolOrganisation
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