Val Warner

Last updated
Valerie Margaret Warner
Born(1946-01-15)January 15, 1946
Harrow, London, England
DiedOctober 10, 2020(2020-10-10) (aged 74)
Hackney, London, England
Occupation
  • Poet
  • editor
  • translator
Alma mater Somerville College, Oxford

Val Warner was a poet, editor and translator who was best known for helping to increase the salience of poet Charlotte Mew's work. [1]

Contents

Warner was the only child of two schoolteachers and grew up in Harrow, London. She went on to study modern history at Somerville College, Oxford. [1]

She initially found work as a school librarian and freelance copy-editor [1] before holding the posts of Creative Writing Fellow at Swansea University and Writer-in-Residence at the University of Dundee. [2]

As well as publishing her own poetry collections, Warner also published a translation of The Centenary Corbière by Tristan Corbière in 1975 [3] and an edition of Charlotte Mew's collected poems and prose in 1981. Along with other scholarly work in the 1980s, this collection helped in renewing wider interest in Mew's work. [1] [4] [5]

Warner became increasingly reclusive in the last years of her life. [1] She sold a house in Harrow that she had inherited from her parents and then subsequently moved to a late-Victorian terraced house in Hackney where she continued to live for the rest of her life. [2] The house lacked running water, heating and cooking facilities. She survived on a diet of raw onions, soya mince and chickpeas. [3]

Her body was discovered after a forced entry into her house by police on 10 October 2020, [3] due to a concerned friend contacting them about a lack of a communication with her. [1] She had died alone and no ascertainable cause of death was reported by the coroner after an autopsy was conducted in November 2020. [1] [2]

Awards and recognition

Warner received the Eric Gregory Award in 1975 [6] and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998. [3]

Bibliography

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Craig, Patricia (2020-11-02). "Val Warner obituary". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2023-09-11.
  2. 1 2 3 "PN Review Print and Online Poetry Magazine - Val Warner: A Reminiscence - Patricia Craig - PN Review 259". www.pnreview.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-09-11.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Val Warner". Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 2023-09-11.
  4. ↑ Parker, Sarah (2023-01-02). "This Rare Spirit: A Life of Charlotte Mew: by Julia Copus, London: Faber & Faber, 2021. 464pp., £25, ISBN 9780571313532". Women's Writing. 30 (1): 78–80. doi: 10.1080/09699082.2021.1985236 . ISSN   0969-9082.
  5. ↑ Merrin, Jeredith (1997). "The Ballad of Charlotte Mew". Modern Philology. 95 (2): 200–217. ISSN   0026-8232.
  6. ↑ "Eric Gregory Awards - The Society of Authors". 2020-05-08. Retrieved 2023-09-11.
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