Long
biographical note
Richard Berengarten (formerly Burns) was born in London in 1943 into a family of musicians. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and University College London. He has lived in Italy, Greece, the USA and former Yugoslavia. His poetry has been translated into 22 languages. It is marked by its multicultural frames of reference, depth and ambitiousness of themes, and formal variety and dexterity.
His mature work is inaugurated by Angels (1977), Tree (1980) and Black Light (1983), a tribute to George Seferis. The range is extended in the book-length poem The Manager (2001), and Book With No Back Cover (2003), which derives from Yi Jing (I Ching). Then come two books that are set in Serbia: In A Time of Drought (2006), and The Blue Butterfly (2006), whose departure-point is an encounter with a blue butterfly at the site of a Nazi massacre. The first of these won the Morava International Poetry Prize and the second, the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize for Poetry and the Serbian Veliki školski čas award. Other books include Learning to Talk (1980), Some Poems, illuminated by Frances Richards (1977), Roots/Routes (1982), Croft Woods (1999), Against Perfection (1999), For the Living (2004) and Manual/ the first 20 (2006).
Richard Burns’s published his first story at the age of 16 in Transatlantic Review. As a student, he wrote for Granta and co-founded the Oxbridge magazine Carcanet. He worked in Padua and Venice, briefly apprenticing himself to the English poet Peter Russell. In Greece, he witnessed the military coup d’état and responded with The Easter Rising 1967. Returning to Cambridge, he met Octavio Paz and, with Anthony Rudolf, co-edited An Octave for Octavio Paz (1972). In the same year, his first collection, Double Flute won an Eric Gregory Award, and Avebury appeared. In 1975, he launched the international Cambridge Poetry Festival, which ran till 1983. His 1981 monograph, Keys to Transformation, explores Ceri Richards and Dylan Thomas. Burns often collaborates with visual artists. He has translated poetry and prose from Italian, French, Greek, Serbian and Croatian.
His posts include: the British Council, Athens (1967); East London College (1968-9); Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (1969-79); Arts Council resident writer, Victoria Centre for Adult Education (1979-81); Visiting Professor, Notre Dame University (1982); and British Council Lector, Belgrade (1987-91). He is an authority on creative writing for children and adults, and on writing skills for university students. He was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge (2003-2005), Project Fellow (2005-2006), and is currently Bye-Fellow at Downing College, Preceptor in Writing and Study Skills at Corpus Christi College, and supervisor at Emmanuel and Pembroke Colleges and at Peterhouse.
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Bibliography
Time of a Flower: poems by Aldo Vianello (translator) Anvil Press Poetry, 1968
The Easter Rising 1967 Restif Press, 1969
The Flaw/Antonis Samarakis (translator with Peter Mansfield) Hutchinson, 1969
The Return of Lazarus Bragora Press, 1971
An Octave for Octovio Paz (editor with Anthony Rudolf) sceptre Press/Menard, 1972
Avebury Anvil Press Poetry, 1972
Double Flute Enitharmon, 1972
The Graphic Works of Ceri Richards/Roberto Sanesi (translator) Enitharmon, 1972
Journey Towards the North/Ceri Richards (contributing translator) Cerastico, 1973
Mario Radice/Guido Ballo (translator with Joan Hall) ILTE (Italy), 1973
Untitled Sceptre Press, 1973
New Poetry (contributor) Arts Council of Great Britain, 1975
Roberto Sanesi/A Selection (contributor) Grosseteste, 1975
Inhabitable Space John Morann (Netherlands), 1976
Angels Los, 1977
On the Organic Language of Henry Moore/Roberto Sanesi (translator) La Nuova Foglio (Italy), 1977
Poems for Shakespeare (contributor) Globe Playhouse Publications, 1977
Some poems (illuminated by Frances Richards) Enitharmon, 1977
Writers of East Anglia (contributor) Secker & Warburg, 1977
Biography: poems by Nasos Vayenas (translator) Lobby Press, 1978
Earthquake Sceptre Press, 1978
For John Riley (contributor) Grosseteste Press, 1979
Learning to Talk Enitharmon, 1980
Rivers of Life: a Gravesham Anthology (editor) Victoria Press, 1980
Tree Menard, 1980
Voices With the Ark (contributor) Avon Books (US), 1980
Homage to Mandelstam (editor with George Gömöri) Los, 1981
Keys to Transformation/Ceri Richards and Dylan Thomas Enitharmon, 1981
In Visible Ink: Selected Poems of Roberto Sanesi (editor) Aquila, 1982
Roots/Routes Cleveland State University Poetry Center (US), 1982
Black Light Los, 1983
The Full Note/Lorine Niedecker (contributor) Interim Press, 1983
Anthony Rudolf and the Menard Press Los, 1985
With a Poet's Eye (contributor) The Tate Gallery, 1986
New Angles (contributor) Oxford, 1987
P.E.N. New Poetry II (contributor) Quartet Books, 1988
A Grove of Trees and a Grove of Stones Octobar (Serbia), 1989
Anthony Dorrell, a Memoir St. Michael's Mount, Cambridge, 1989
An Anthology for Alan Clodd (contributor) Enitharmon, 1990
Färdväg/30 English Poets (contributor) FIB: S. Lyrikkllubb (Sweden), 1990
Lady in An Empty Dress: poems by Aleksandar Petrov (translator) Forest Books, 1990
The Virago Book of Love Poetry (contributing translator) Virago, 1990
I Wear My Shadow Inside Me: poems by Du?ka Vrhovac (co-translator) Forest, 1991
The Space Between (contributor) Notre Dame (Indiana), 1991
Klaonica (contributor) Bloodaxe, 1993
Out of Yugoslavia (co-editor) North Dakota Quarterly (US), 1994
The Road to Parnassus (contributor) Salzburg University, 1995
Summoning the Sea (contributor) Salzburg, 1996
The Colonnade of Teeth (contributing translator) Bloodaxe, 1996
Balkan Destiny/Ivan Gadjanski (translator) RAD (Serbia), 1997
Half of Nowhere (illustrated by Nick Maland) Cambridge University Press, 1998
The Spaces of Hope (contributing translator) Anvil Press Poetry, 1998
Against Perfection The King of Hearts, 1999
Croft Woods Los, 1999
Is NATO right to bomb Yugoslavia? Politika (Serbia), 1999
The Mind Has Mountains: a.alvarez@lxx (contributor) Los, 1999
The Twilight of the West (contributor) Novosti (Serbia), 1999
There ARE Kermodians (contributor) David Campbell, 1999
The Manager Elliott and Thompson, 2001
A Party Between Two Covers (contributor) Chapman, 2002
Earth Songs (contributor) Green Books, 2002
Passionate Renewal/Jewish Poetry in Britain since 1945 (contributor) Five Leaves, 2002
Book with No Back Cover David Paul, 2003
Looking Eastward (contributor) MPT, 2003
For the Living/Selected Longer Poems 1965-2000 Salt, 2004
Remnants of light (contributor) Serbian Writers’ Association, 2005
The Art of Unthinking International Haiku Association (Bulgaria & Japan), 2005
In A Time of Drought Shoestring Press, 2006
Manual/the first 20 Earl of Seacliffe Art Workshop (New Zealand), 2006
The Blue Butterfly Salt, 2006
Into the Further Reaches (contributor) PS Avalon, 2007
Speaking English (contributor) Five Leaves, 2007
Holding the Sea: Manual/the third 20 Earl of Seacliffe (New Zealand), 2008
Selected Poems/Aldo Vianello (co-translator) Anvil Press Poetry, 2008
Studia Mythologica Slavica 11 (contributor) Ljubljana and Trieste, 2008
Under Balkan Light Salt, 2008
ContourLines (contributor) Salt, 2009
For Angus (editor with Gideon Calder) Los, 2009
Manual/the fourth 20 Earl of Seacliffe (New Zealand), 2009
Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years (contributor) Notre Dame (Indiana), 2009
New Order: Hungarian Poets of the Post 1989 Generation (contributing translator) Arc, 2010
The Perfect Order: Selected Poems 1965-2010/Nasos Vayenas (editor with Paschalis Nikolaou) Anvil Press Poetry, 2010
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