Jon Silkin

Jon Silkin, the English poet, will be in New Zealand from October 2—17, 1974 on a visit sponsored by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council with the aid of the New Zealand Universities Students' Association. He has spent the last three months in Australia on a visit sponsored jointly by the Department of English, University of Sydney and the Australian Literature Board.

Silkin is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including The Re-ordering of the Stones, The Peaceable Kingdom, The Two Freedoms, Nature with Man and Amana Grass (Chatto and Windus), and is featured in Penguin Modem Poets 7. His latest collection. The Principle of Water was published jointly by Carcanet Press in the UK and Wild and Woolley, Sydney.

He is author of a critical study of the poetry of the first World War, Out of Battle (Oxford University Press) and editor of the anthology Poetry of the Committed Individual (Penguin).

He is the founding editor of the international literary quarterly Stand, now in its fifteenth volume.

Jon Silkin will be based in the English Department, Auckland University; but he will be travelling around New Zealand giving readings and lectures, and meeting New Zealand writers and readers. Inquiries should be made to the English Department, University of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland - phone 74740 ex. 9383 or Michael Volkerling, Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, 126 The Terrace, Wellington.

He will be accompanied by his wife, short story writer Lorna Tracey, some of whose recent work is collected in the fifth volume of Introduction, the new writing collection published by Faber.

A seminar with John Silkin will be held at the English Department on Thursday October 10, 12-2pm. Silkin will give a poetry reading on Friday October 11, 12 2pm in the Lounge and Smoking Room.

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