inscribed by the author to Brian and Joan Simon



Gavin Buchanan Ewart (February 4, 1916 – October 25, 1995) was a British poet best known for contributing to Geoffrey Grigson's New Verse at the age of seventeen.

[edit] Life

He was born in London and educated at the prestigious Wellington College before entering Christ's College, Cambridge where he received a B.A. in 1937 and an M.A. in 1942.

After active service in the World War II, he worked in publishing and with the British Council before becoming an advertising copywriter in 1952

.But he was caught up in the Second World War and between 1940 and 1946 served in the Royal Artillery, fighting through both North Africa and Italy, and ending up as a Captain. During these years, and thereafter until the early 1960s (in other words for over 20 years) he published hardly any poetry. On demobilisation, he served as a functionary for Editions Poetry London and for the British Council, before becoming an advertising copywriter in 1952.

[edit] Poetry

From the age of 17, when his poetry was first printed in Geoffrey Grigson's New Verse, he acquired a reputation for wit and accomplishment through such works as "Phallus in Wonderland" and "Poems and Songs", which appeared in 1939 and was his first collection.

The Second World War disrupted his development as a poet, however, and he published no further volumes until "Londoners" of 1964. From then he produced many collections, which included "The Gavin Ewart Show" (1971), "No Fool like an Old Fool" (1976), "All My Little Ones" (1978), "The Ewart Quarto" (1984), and "Penultimate Poems" (1989). "The Collected Ewart: 1933-1980" (1980) was supplemented in 1991 by "Collected Poems: 1980-1990".

The intelligence and casually flamboyant virtuosity with which he framed his often humorous commentaries on human behaviour made his work invariably entertaining and interesting. The irreverent eroticism for which his poetry is noted resulted in W H Smith's banning of his "The Pleasures of the Flesh" (1966) from their shops.

As an editor he produced numerous anthologies, including the "Penguin Book of Light Verse" (1980). He was the 1991 recipient of the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse.