Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (19 July 1902 in Birkenhead ? 13 May 1962 in Chelsea, London ) was an English poet .

He went to Birkenhead School until the age of 14, ^[1] before being sent to Charterhouse School , but ran away at age 16. ^[2] From 1922 to 1926 he attended the University of Liverpool , where he read English literature , French, Philosophy and Greek. ^[1] He later moved to London where he worked in bookshops, and also as a copywriter. ^[3]

After avoiding military service in World War II , he later discovered he was unfit for service. He suffered from bipolar disorder , and received electro-convulsive therapy .

He first began to publish in the 1920s in literary magazines. He was to see three volumes of poetry published during his life: Walls of Glass in 1934, Voices in a Giant City in 1947 and Selections in 1958. He contributed several poems to a 1952 edition of Bewick's Birds .

He died in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage .

In the mid-1970s he was the subject of a radio programme entitled Portrait of a Romantic . This, together with the publication of the posthumous selection Not Love Perhaps in 1972, increased interest in his work; and his poetry subsequently appeared in school books and anthologies.

A 1985 anthology of his work The Collected Poems of A. S. J. Tessimond , edited by Hubert Nicholson , contains previously unpublished works.

In 2010 a new collected poems, based closely on Nicholson's edition, was published by Bloodaxe Books .

In April 2010 an edition of Brian Patten 's series Lost Voices on BBC Radio Four was committed solely to Tessimond.

Notes [ edit ]

External links [ edit ]

• A.S.J. Tessimond Poetry and Translations at the Open Translation Project sponsored by Bryant H. McGill
• A.S.J. Tessimond: 105th Anniversary Celebration at The Filter^
• Review of his collected poems, with biographical information : Mark Ford: The analyst is always right. London Review of Books 11 November 2011, p. 23.