Andrew Waterman (poet)

Andrew Waterman (born 1940) is an English poet. Born in London, Waterman grew up in Woodside and Croydon, and at the age of eleven won a scholarship to the Trinity School of John Whitgift. He left before sitting his A levels, and after six years of clerical and manual jobs in London and Jersey, Waterman studied at the University of Leicester (graduating with First Class Honours in 1966) and Worcester College, University of Oxford. From 1968 to 1997 he lectured in English Literature at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, and in 1998 retired to Norfolk. He is a recipient of the Cholmondeley Award for Poets. Since 1990 he has been registered blind, though in practice is partially sighted.

Waterman's poetry is often noted for its wit, humility and stoicism. Reviewing his Collected Poems in Ambit, Marita Over writes: "The “story” that emerges through these poems is moving and inspiring and the craftsmanship in its telling is superb. Even as it explores the darkest themes of the arbitrariness of human existence and the innate violence of the human species, brims with a vitality and an in-spite-of-itself optimism born of a keen eye and ear for what is beautiful." Waterman is a recipient of the Cholmondeley Award to Poets.

In "Ulsterectomy", Waterman commented on how writers who happened to have been born in Northern Ireland are claimed for that nationality, ignoring their other cultural influences.

Select bibliography

Poetry

• Living Room (Marvell Press, 1974, Poetry Book Society Choice)
• From the Other Country (Carcanet Press, 1977)
• Over the Wall (Carcanet, 1980)
• Out for the Elements (Carcanet, 1981, Poetry Book Society Recommendation)
• The Poetry of Chess (ed.) (Anvil Press Poetry, 1981)
• Selected Poems (Carcanet, 1986, Poetry Book Society Commendation)
• In the Planetarium (Carcanet, 1990)
• The End of the Pier Show (Carcanet, 1995)
• Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2000), which includes many new poems alongside those from his previous books.
• The Captain's Swallow (Carcanet, 2007)

Anthologies (select bibliography)

• Modern Poets Five, ed. Jim Hunter (Faber and Faber, 1981)
• Some Contermporary Poets of Britain and Ireland, ed. Michael Schmidt (Carcanet, 1983)
• Post-War British Poets, ed. Dannie Abse (Hutchinson 1989)
• The Wearing of the Black, ed. Padraic Fiacc (Blacstaff Press, 1974)
• Poems in Focus, ed. Christopher Martin (Oxford University Press, 1985)
• London Magazine 1961-1985, a selection from 25 years of the magazine, ed. Alan Ross (Chatto & Windus, 1986)
• Elected Friends: Poems for and about Edward Thomas, ed. Anne Harvey (Enitharmon Press, 1991)
• A Rage for Order: Poetry of the Northern Ireland Troubles, ed. Frank Ormsby (Blackstaff Press, 1992)
• Earth Songs: An Anthology of Contemporary Eco-Poetry, ed. Peter Abbs (Green Books/Resurgence, 2002)

Waterman has also written a considerable amount of critical prose.

External links

• Official website
• Interview with Rory Waterman, Poets' Quarterly, October 2009