Nigel Jenkins

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.^[1]

Early life

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

'Poem for the Good Settler', Swansea

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 ever haiku collection from a Welsh publisher (Blue: 101 Haiku, Senryu and Tanka).^[2] 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 ever 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.^[3] 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.^[4]

Publications

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

External links

• Official website
• Centre for Research in to the English Literature and Language of Wales http://www.swan.ac.uk/english/crew/nigel_jenkins.htm
• Gomer Press http://www.gomer.co.uk/gomer/en/gomer.SearchBook/Author/588
• Swansea University: http://www.swan.ac.uk/english/postgrad/home.html