John Heath-Stubbs was born in 1918. He was educated at The Queen’s College, Oxford, where his contemporaries were C.S.Lewis and Tolkein. He published his first poems in the wartime volume EIGHT OXFORD POETS and has gone on to write poetry, plays and literary essays that ignore fashion. One of the most celebrated poets of his generation, he was noted also for his translations of Middle Eastern poets, his role as teacher to new generations of writers and as a voice keeping the long form poem an active and vibrant tradition. He received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

John died in December 2006.