Tripti Joshi (Editor)

Nigel Jenkins

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Language
  
English, Welsh

Role
  
Poet

Name
  
Nigel Jenkins


Period
  
1972–2014

Nationality
  
Welsh

Education
  
Nigel Jenkins Nigel Jenkins A Simple Tribute YouTube


Born
  
20 July 1949Gower, Wales (
1949-07-20
)

Occupation
  
Poet, playwright, lecturer

Notable works
  
Gwalia in Khasia (1995)Blue: 101 Haiku, Senryu and Tanka (2002)The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales (co-ed., 2008)

Notable awards
  
Eric Gregory Award, 1976Wales Book of the Year, 1996

Died
  
January 28, 2014, Swansea, United Kingdom

Resting place
  
St Mary's Church, Swansea, Pennard, Gower Peninsula

Books
  
Encyclopaedia of Wales, Gwalia in Khasia, Animal Cell Biotechnology, Real Gower, Real Swansea

Similar People
  
Menna Elfyn, John Davies, Peter Finch, Duncan Bush

Nigel jenkins reading where poems came from


Nigel Jenkins (20 July 1949 – 28 January 2014) was an Anglo-Welsh poet. He was an editor, journalist, psychogeographer, broadcaster and writer of creative non-fiction, as well as being a lecturer at Swansea University and director of the creative writing programme there.

Contents

Nigel Jenkins Poet Portraits Gallery 2 wwwlorrainesartstudiocouk

Nigel Jenkins on Harri Webb


Early life

Nigel Jenkins httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaen777Nig

Jenkins was born on 20 July 1949 in Gorseinon, Wales, and was brought up on a farm on the former Kilvrough estate on the Gower Peninsula, near Swansea. He was educated at the University of Essex.

Career

Jenkins first came to prominence as one of the Welsh Arts Council's Three Young Anglo-Welsh Poets (the title of a 1974 collection featuring Jenkins, Tony Curtis and Duncan Bush – all winners of the Council's Young Poets Prize). In 1976, he was given an Eric Gregory Award by the Society of Authors.

Jenkins would go on to publish several collections of poetry over the course of his life, including, in 2002, the first haiku collection from a Welsh publisher (Blue: 101 Haiku, Senryu and Tanka). His poetry has been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Dutch and Russian, and his translations of modern Welsh poetry have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies worldwide, including The Bloodaxe Anthology of Modern Welsh Poetry (2003). In 1998, the Russian journal Literatura Innostranya (Foreign Literature) published a selection of his poems, translated into Russian, for a feature on his work. He also composed poetry for public places – executed in stone, steel, neon, glass and other materials – in response to commissions from various public bodies.

A former newspaper journalist, Jenkins was an accomplished writer of prose. In 1996, he won the Wales Book of the Year prize for his travel book Gwalia in Khasia (1995) – the story of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists' Mission to the Khasi Hills in north-east India (1841–1969). Jenkins also edited an accompanying anthology of poetry and prose from the Khasi Hills, entitled Khasia in Gwalia. In 2001, Gomer Press published a selection of his essays and articles as Footsore on the Frontier and, in 2008, Real Swansea – the first of his three contributions to Seren's series of psychogeographic guide books – was released to much acclaim. A second volume (Real Swansea Two) was published in 2012, followed by a third, posthumous volume in 2014 (Real Gower), completing an unintended trilogy.

During his career, Jenkins proved himself to be a proficient editor, lending his keen editorial eye to a number of prominent projects and publications, including The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales, published by the University of Wales Press in 2008. A highly respected pioneer of the haiku in Wales, he also co-edited the country's first national anthology of haiku poetry, Another Country (Gomer Press), in 2011.

Jenkins was a lecturer on Swansea University's Creative and Media Writing programme and, at the time of his death, lived in Mumbles, Swansea.

Death

Jenkins died in the Tŷ Olwen Hospice in Swansea on 28 January 2014, aged 64, following a short illness. His funeral was held at St. Mary's Church, Pennard, on the morning of 10 February 2014. With the church at capacity, the ceremony was relayed by audio link-up to hundreds of mourners gathered in the nearby community hall. Jenkins was then buried in the graveyard of St. Mary's, the same resting place as fellow poets Vernon Watkins and Harri Webb.

Legacy

In July 2014, The H'mm Foundation published Encounters with Nigel, an anthology of critical essays, creative pieces and tributes to Jenkins from fellow writers, former students and family members. The anthology was the third in the H'mm Foundation's Encounters series, following publications dedicated to Dylan and R. S. Thomas. It was launched at Swansea's Dylan Thomas Centre on 19 July 2014 as part of Cofio Nigel, an event celebrating Jenkins' life.

The punk band Helen Love name-checked Jenkins on their single 'Where Dylan Thomas Talks To Me', released in November 2014. The song revealed the band's desire to see the cycle path from Mumbles to Swansea being renamed 'The Nigel Jenkins Way', with lead singer Love seeing it as a fitting tribute to "a fantastic writer and poet, a maverick, a punk rocker, somebody Swansea should be really proud of."

Radio and television scripts/presentation

  • Fields of Praise (a half-hour documentary on the Urdd) for 'Kaleidoscope', BBC Radio 4, May 1987.
  • Gwalia yng Nghasia, a three-part documentary series for S4C, March/April 1994.
  • TV Ballads: At Home, BBC Wales, 1995 and BBC 2, 1996.
  • Gwalia in Khasia, a one-hour documentary for BBC Wales (1995).
  • Kardomah Boys, about Dylan Thomas and his fellow Swansea artists, in the BBC Wales 'Catalysts' series, September '97.
  • Prizes

  • 1998: John Tripp Spoken Poetry Award
  • 1996: Wales Book of the Year, for Gwalia in Khasia
  • 1991: John Morgan Writing Award (Welsh Writers' Trust)
  • 1976: Eric Gregory Award (Society of Authors)
  • 1974: Welsh Arts Council's Young Poets Prize
  • Two Welsh Arts Council bursaries
  • References

    Nigel Jenkins Wikipedia