James Simmons
James Simmons was a prominent Northern Irish poet and playwright, born on February 14, 1933, in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He received his early education in local schools and later attended the University of Leeds, where he graduated with a B.A. in English in 1958. Simmons began his career in the arts by writing songs and teaching, eventually gaining recognition for his poetry, highlighted by the Eric Gregory Award in 1962. He is perhaps best known for founding the Honest Ulsterman in 1968, a significant literary journal that featured contributions from notable poets such as Seamus Heaney. His work often reflects the social and political turmoil of Northern Ireland, with notable pieces addressing contemporary issues. In addition to his poetry, Simmons had a diverse career that included teaching drama and literature at the University of Ulster and establishing a creative-writing institution called the Poet's House in Falcarragh. He passed away in 2001, leaving behind a legacy as a key figure in Northern Irish literature and an advocate for emerging poets.
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James Simmons
Poet
- Born: February 14, 1933
- Birthplace: Derry, Northern Ireland
- Died: June 20, 2001
Biography
James Simmons was born into a middle-class Protestant family on February 14, 1933, in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. He took his early education at Foyle College in Londonderry and completed studies at Campbell College in Belfast in 1949. Rather than pursue higher education, Simmons moved to England, where he wrote songs and held a number of short-term jobs. He returned to Northern Ireland and, in 1956, married Laura Stinson.
Simmons received a scholarship to the University of Leeds, where he edited Poetry and Audience. He graduated with a B.A. in English in 1958. Subsequently, Simmons taught at the Friends’ School in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Both his songs and his poems began to receive attention; in 1962, he was honored with the Eric Gregory Award for poetry. From 1963 to 1966, Simmons taught at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria, where he wrote his first play, Aikin Mata: The Lysistrata of Aristophanes.
Simmons’s poems appeared in the New Statesman and the Spectator, and his first chapbook, Ballad of a Marriage, was published by Belfast’s Festival Publications in 1966. The following year, Simmons moved back to Northern Ireland and his first full-length work, Late but in Earnest, appeared. The collection celebrates private life, despite the turmoil in Northern Ireland at the time.
The book’s success enabled Simmons to found in 1968 the Honest Ulsterman, an important and long-running literary journal whose earliest contributors included such Belfast Group poets as Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon. Simmons served as the magazine’s editor for two years. Concurrently, he lectured in drama and Anglo-Irish literature at the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Simmons held his position from 1968 to 1984. During the 1970’s he also traveled, performed, founded a record company (Poor Genius Records), and continued to publish.
Unlike Simmons’s earlier books, The Long Summer Still to Come displays the poet’s and Ulster’s troubles. The ballad “Claudy,” from West Strand Visions, also addresses the contemporary political situation by way of its depiction of a car bombing in the village of Claudy. Simmons received the Chomondeley Award for Poetry in 1977, also the year of his divorce. Blackstaff Press published The Selected James Simmons, which was recommended by the Poetry Book Society, shortly thereafter.
Simmons’s critical study of dramatist Sean O’Casey was published in 1983. In 1994, Simmons moved to Falcarragh. There, he, his wife Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons, and poet and playwright Cathal Ó Searchaigh founded the Poet’s House, a degree-granting institution for creative-writing students.
Simmons died in 2001. Today he is remembered not only as one of Northern Ireland’s important poets, but also as one who created an opportunity for rising poets with the Honest Ulsterman.