Jeremy Reed (writer)

Jersey-born Jeremy Reed is one of the premier British poets and prose writers of his generation. Reed has published 50 major works in a quarter century. He has written more than a two dozen books of poetry, half as many novels, and nearly as many volumes of literary and music criticism. He has also published important and respected translations of Montale, Cocteau, Nasrallah, Adonis, Bogary and Holderlin. His own work has been translated abroad in numerous editions and more than a dozen languages. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including those of the National Poetry, Somerset Maugham, Eric Gregory, Ingram Merrill, and Royal Literary Funds. He has also won the Poetry Society's European Translation Prize.

Reed's poetry displays a masterful light-fingered lyricism in which acute social observation and humour combine to create a public poetry in the tradition of Auden and Merrill. In other moods, Reed is a masterful observer of the specific details of passing strangers. As they move through the unmatched variety of London's daily procession, he engages them in moments of imaginative meeting, creating a private poetry of urban encounter whose affinities lie closest to Frank O'Hara, and Baudelaire. In these poems, Reed allows his profound sympathy for others to form a bridge inward, a bridge sustained through arresting imagery, into the mains circuits of the world we share.

Reed's unique contribution to British literature has been hailed by figures as diverse as J.G. Ballard, Seamus Heaney and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as Kathleen Raine, John Ashberry, David Gascoyne and the late James Merrill.

His influences include Rimbaud, Artaud, Genet, J.G. Ballard, David Bowie and Iain Sinclair. Reed has a long history of publication with both Creation Books and Peter Owen, however his Selected Poems is published by Penguin Books. His recent art criticism appears in Cornermag: Gareth Lloyd Leaving the 20th Century. His latest novel, The Grid, has just been published to wide critical acclaim.

His collaboration with musician Itchy Ear sets a precedent in matching poetry with dance beats and sonic exploration. They perform live under the Ginger Light moniker. Reed's PhD. is from the University of Essex, and he has occasionally taught at that institution and at the University of London. However despite the extreme erudition of both his creative and critical work, Reed remains far more a part of the life of the streets of Soho than of the academy---as perhaps befits one of our great champions of The Outsider in both literature and in life.

Collections of Poetry---------------------

Target (poems) (1972)

Agate paws (poems) (1975)

Diseased Near Deceased (poems) (1975)

Emerald Cat (poems) (1975)

The Priapic Beatitudes, the Bat in Violet Lenses, a Phallic Descant: 13 Runic Epiphanies to a Jade Novella (1975)

Ruby Onocentaur: Six Poems (poems) (1975)

Count Bluebeard (poems) (1976)

Blue Talaria (poems) (1976)

Green: Miscellanea (poems) (1976)

Isthmus of Samuel Greenberg (poems) (1976)

Night Attack (poems) (1976)

Saints and Psychotics: Poems, 1973-74 (poems) (1979)

Bleecker Street (poems) (1980)

Walk On Through (poems) (1980)

Man Afraid (poems) (1982)

A Long Shot to Heaven (poems) (1982)

The Secret Ones (poems) (1983)

By the Fisheries (poems) (1984)

Nero (poems) (1985)

Elegy for Senta (poems) (1985)

Skies (poems) (1985)

Border Pass (poems) (1986)

Selected Poems (poems) (1987)

Escaped Image (poems) (1988)

Engaging Form (poems) (1988)

Prayer (poems) (1988)

The Thread: Written for Kathleen Raines 80th Birthday (poems) (1988)

Madness: The Price of Poetry (poems) (1989)

To Celebrate John Ashberry (poems) (1989)

The Coastguard's House (1990) (with Eugenio Montale)

The Nineties (poems) (1990)

Dicing for Pearls (poems) (1990)

Lorcas Death (poems) (1990)

Sky Writing (poems) (1990)

Nasturtiums (poems) (1991)

Anastasia in Purple Leopard Spots (poems) (1992)

Volcano Smoke At Diamond Beach (poems) (1992)

Red-Haired Android (poems) (1992)

Black Sugar (poems) (1992)

Around the Day, Alice (poems) (1992)

Artaud (poems) (1993)

Lying Down (poems) (1993)

Turkish Delight: Torriano Meeting House Poetry Pamphlet (poems) (1994)

Torch Lighters (poems) (1994)

Kicks (poems) (1995)

Red Hot Lipstick: Erotic Stories (1995)

Bitter Blue (poems) (1995)

Listening to Marc Almond (poems) (1995)

Sweet Sister Lyric (poems) (1996)

Pop Poems (poems) (1997)

Angel (poems) (1998)

Brigitte's Blue Heart (poems) (1998)

Claudia Schiffer's Red Shoes (poems) (1998)

For John Heath-Stubbs at eighty (poems) (1998)

Just Out of Reach (poems) (1999)

Quentin Crisp as Prime Minister (poems) (1999)

Patron Saint of Eye-liner (poems) (2000)

Heartbreak Hotel (poems) (2002)

Perry Blake (poems) (2003)

Duck and Sally on the Inside (poems) (2004)

Kiss the Whip (2005) (with Robert Bloch, Henry Clement, Jean-Paul Denard, Richard Matheson)

This Is How You Disappear: A Book of Elegies (poems) (2007)

Criticism & Non-Fiction------------------------

Homage to David Gascoyne (1990)

Lipstick, Sex and Poetry (1991)

Delirium: An Interpretation of Arthur Rimbaud (1991)

Segmenting the Black Orange (1994)

Waiting for the Man: Biography and Critical Study of Lou Reed (1994)

Blue Sonata: The Poetry of John Ashbery (1994)

The Last Star: A Study of Marc Almond (1995)

The Angel in Poetry (1998)

Scott Walker: Another Tear Falls (1998)

Brian Jones: The Last Decadent (1999)

Angels, Divas and Blacklisted Heroes (1999)

Caligula: Divine Carnage (2000) (with Stephen Barber)

Marc Almond: Adored and Explored (2001)

Saint Billie (2002)

Jean Genet: Born to Lose (2005)

Orange Sunshine: The Party That Lasted a Decade (2006)

A Stranger On the Earth: The Life and Work of Anna Kavan (2006) (see Anna Kavan)

Novels------

The Lipstick Boys (1984)

Blue Rock (1987)

Red Eclipse (1989)

Inhabiting Shadows (1990)

Isidore: A Novel About the Comte De Lautreamont (1991)

When the Whip Comes Down (1992)

Diamond Nebula (1994)

Chasing Black Rainbows (1994)

The Pleasure Chateau (1995)

The Sun King: Elvis - the Second Coming (1997)

Dorian: A Sequel to the Picture of Dorian Grey (1997)

Sister Midnight (1998)

The Purple Room (2000)

Boy Caesar (2003)

The Grid (2008)