Basil Payne, poet

<table> <tr> <td height="50" valign="bottom"><a href="selected/ate/perspective.html">"Seeing things in their <i>proper</i> perspective is the improper privilege of the Unafflicted"</a> <h1>Biography</h1> <p>In 1964 Basil Payne won a Guinness International poetry prize, followed by another Guinness International prize in 1966. He received the Governor's Special Citation for unique contribution to the Arts in New Jersey, USA, 1975.</p> <p>In the 1960's, Basil Payne frequently wrote theatre reviews and second leaders (editorials) for <i>The Irish Times</i>. In the early 1970's he was the film reviewer for RTE Radio.</p> <p>As much at ease with the spoken word as with the written text, he was acclaimed for his live presentations of poetry with musical accompaniment, among others the solo presentation Be Free With Me, premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in 1984, and the solo recital Songs of Love, premiered at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, 1989.</p> <p>Basil Payne spent several years as a lecturer in English literature at colleges in the USA, including Rutgers University and the University of California. He lives in Dublin and has seven children.</p> <p>His lecturing career suffered following the publication in 1979 of the <i>Dictionary of Irish Literature</i> (ed. Robert Hogan, see <a href="assassination.html">literary assassination</a>). He received several Irish Arts Council bursaries in the 1980's, but this lifeline was then cut, at a time when lesser poets were awarded lifetime grants as members of the <i>Aosdána</i>.</p> <p>Two important works remain unpublished.</p> <h1>Selected Poems</h1> <p>Most of the poems by Basil Payne below are in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. This requires the free Acrobat Reader plug-in, which you can download here:<br>  <br> <a href="http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html" target="_blank"><img src="pictures/getacro.gif" alt="Acrobat download" border="0" width="88" height="31"></a></p> <p style='line-height:10%;text-autospace:none'><b>Dark and Light Fantastic</b> (unpublished)<br> </p> <p class="left20">These extracts were published in the Belgian literary magazine <i>Écritures no. 13</i> (2001).<br> <a href="selected/dlf/10.pdf" target="new">Cold</a><br> <a href="selected/dlf/45.pdf" target="new">Survivors</a><br> <a href="selected/dlf/57.pdf" target="new">Clap Hands Beat Time</a></p> <p><a href="selected/henry.pdf" target="new">A Homage to Henry</a><br>      Written in 1992, on the twentieth anniversary of the John Berryman's death.</p> <p style='line-height:10%;text-autospace:none'><a name="ate"></a><b>An Answer to Exile</b> (unpublished)</p> <p class="left20"><a href="selected/ate/demons.pdf" target="new">Mona Lisa and Demons at Penn Station, New York</a><br> <a href="selected/ate/perspective.html" target="new">Afflicted and Unafflicted on Fifth Avenue, New York</a><br> <a href="selected/ate/lemmings.pdf" target="new">Abraham Lincoln and the Suicide March of Lemmings</a> <a href="selected/ate/jackie1.pdf" target="new">From Sonnet to Syllable</a><br> <a href="selected/ate/jackie2.pdf" target="new">From Syllable to Sonnet</a><br> <a href="selected/ate/survivors.pdf" target="new">The True Survivors</a><br> <a href="selected/ate/chicago.pdf" target="new">Night Train from Chicago</a><br> </p> <p><a name="optimism"></a><b>Another Kind of Optimism</b> (1974)</p> <p class="left20"><a href="selected/optimism/twice.pdf" target="new">Twice upon a time</a><br> <a href="selected/optimism/kavanagh.pdf" target="new">Kavanagh a la Carte</a> <a href="selected/optimism/wave.pdf" target="new">No One to Wave At</a></p> <p><a name="afternoon"></a><b>Love in the Afternoon</b> (1971)</p> <p class="left20"><a href="selected/love/lines.pdf" target="new">Lines in Memory of My Father</a><br> <a href="selected/love/carters.pdf" target="new">Carters</a> <a href="selected/love/book.pdf" target="new">The Book</a> <a href="selected/love/daze.pdf" target="new">A Hard Night's Daze</a> <a href="selected/love/magi.pdf" target="new">Last of the Magi, Maybe</a></p> <p><b>Sunlight on a Square</b></p>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br>  <br> <a target="main" href="main.html">Main page</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="biography.html">Biography</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="published.html">Published works</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="unpublished.html">Unpublished works</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="prose.html">Prose</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="selected.html">View selected poems</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="reprints.html">Download reprints</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="bookshop.html">Online bookshop</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="audio.html">Audio recordings</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="about.html">About this site</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="contact.html">Contact</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a target="main" href="links.html">Literary links</a></td> </tr> </table>