Veronica Forrest-Thomson

Veronica Elizabeth Marian Forrest-Thomson (28 November 1947 – 26 April 1975) was a poet and a critical theorist brought up in Scotland. Her 1978 study Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry was reissued in 2016.

Veronica Forrest-Thomson
Born(1947-11-28)28 November 1947
Malaya
Died26 April 1975(1975-04-26) (aged 27)
EducationUniversity of Liverpool;
Girton College, University of Cambridge
Occupation(s)poet, critical theorist
Notable workPoetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1971⁠–⁠1974)​

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.[1] She opted to hyphenate the 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.[2][3] Her Cambridge friends included the poets Wendy Mulford and Denise Riley.[4]

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).[5] 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 accidental overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol.[6][7] She was married to the writer and academic Jonathan Culler from 1971 to 1974; he became the executor of her literary estate.[8][9][10] In November 2019, Jonathan Culler passed the role of literary executor to the academic and poet Gareth Farmer.[11][12][13][14]

Further reading
  • 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.
  • Gareth Farmer, Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Poetic Artifice and the Struggle with Forms (Sussex: unpublished PhD thesis)
  • 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-Thomsom's ABC of Atoms: Poetry, Knowledge, Technique", Cambridge Quarterly, 51.1, (March, 2022), pp. 1–19

References
  1. Alison Mark, Veronica Forrest-Thomson and Language Poetry, 2001
  2. "Janus: Papers of Veronica Forrest-Thomson". janus.lib.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
  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, ISBN 07134 5848 8
  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.
  13. Papers of Veronica Forrest-Thomson, 1937–2011, held at the Girton College Archive
  14. Harriet Staff, 'Introducing the Veronica Forrest-Thomson Archive', Poetry Foundation, 2 July 2013
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