Name Yann Lovelock | Role Writer | |
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Books The Line Forward, The vegetable book, Landscape with Voices: Poems 1980-1995 | ||
Yann Lovelock (born 11 February 1939) is an English writer and translator who later became a Buddhist interfaith worker.
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Literary career
Yann Lovelock was born in Birmingham on 11 February 1939. His career as a poet, editor and reviewer began while he was studying at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. For the most part his writing appeared from small presses and in little magazines. He was associated in particular with Peter Mortimer's Iron, Nick Toczek's The Little Word Machine, and Ian Robinson's Oasis, all of which he helped edit. In Europe he served as vice-chair of Freundkreis Poesie Europe (Frankfurt am Main, 1977–97) and was English editor of its literary annual. As a critic and translator, his main specialisation was in the poetry of the Low Countries and he was commissioned to write a study of modern Dutch poetry in translation, The Line Forward (1984). Among Dutch-language poets he helped edit and translate have been Guido Gezelle, Anton van Wilderode, Hugo Claus, Willem Roggeman, Stefaan van den Bremt and H.C. ten Berge. His allied interest was in modernist poetry in Belgian Romance dialects, of which he edited and translated two anthologies, The Colour of the Weather (1980) and In the Pupil's Mirror (1997). In 1995 he was elected a corresponding member of the Belgian "dialect academy", La Société de Langue et de Littérature Wallonnes. During the 1970s he was commissioned by UNESCO to co-translate several works from Eastern languages. Later translations have included selections from Marianne Larsen (Denmark), Gilles Cyr (Quebec) and Serge Pey (France).
Buddhist and interfaith involvement
The other side of Lovelock's life centred on his involvement with Buddhism. Between 1982 and 2005 he was responsible for the educational outreach and interfaith work of Birmingham Buddhist Vihara; afterwards he served as Secretary to Birmingham Maha Vihara. With Venerable Khemadhammo, he co-founded the Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy Organisation in 1984 and served as its Co-ordinator until 1995. Since 2002 his national involvement in multi-faith activities has included serving on the executives of the National Association of Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education and of the Inter Faith Network UK; as interfaith co-ordinator for the Network of Buddhist Organisations; and as Buddhist vice-chair of the Council of Dharmic Faiths. At regional level he was vice-chair of the West Midlands Faiths Forum and served as alternate faith member on the West Midlands Regional Assembly. In 2012 he was awarded the British Empire Medal for his services to community cohesion and inter-faith relations in the West Midlands.