John Ormond
John Ormond, born John Ormond Thomas on April 3, 1923, in Dunvant, Glamorgan, Wales, was a multifaceted artist known for his contributions to poetry, journalism, film-making, and art. His upbringing in a close-knit village deeply influenced his creative work, which often reflected the themes of human dignity and the beauty of everyday life. Ormond pursued his education at University College, Swansea, earning degrees in philosophy and English, and he developed a keen interest in the poetry of notable figures such as Wilfred Owen and Dylan Thomas. Ormond's early poetry was characterized by a style reminiscent of Thomas, though he later critiqued his own early works as overly verbose, leading him to discard much of it.
His breakthrough came with the publication of "Cathedral Builders," which showcased a more refined style. Throughout his career, he published several notable collections, including "Requiem and Celebration," which won him multiple Welsh Arts Council awards. Ormond's poetry is celebrated for its craftsmanship and its profound exploration of mortality and the beauty found in the mundane. He remained a respected literary figure until his passing, leaving behind a legacy that resonates with themes of humanity and artistry.
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John Ormond
Writer
- Born: April 3, 1923
- Birthplace: Dunvant, Glamorgan, Wales
- Died: 1990
Biography
John Ormond was born John Ormond Thomas on April 3, 1923, to Arthur and Elsie Ormond Thomas in Dunvant, Glamorgan, Wales. The close-knit village in which he grew up strongly influenced his work, providing much of the subject-matter for his endeavors in poetry, journalism, poetry, film-making, and art. He attended Dunvant Council School and Swansea Grammar School before entering University College in Swansea in 1941.
Although he intended to become a painter and took classes at the Swansea School of Art, he earned his degrees from University College, one in philosophy in 1944 and a Bachelor of Art in English in 1945. While at the University, he became particularly interested in the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Dylan Thomas, the latter of whom not only heavily influenced his early poetry but also became the subject of two of Ormond’s later films. He published poems in several magazines in Wales and England while still in school and was included in a collection of three poets’ writing, Indications, published by Grey Walls Press in 1943. The collection met with success and critics found that Ormond had promise as a poet, but on the advice of Vernon Watkins, Ormond waited quite a while before attempting to publish a collection again. On September 21, 1946, he married Glenys Roderick, and the couple had three children: Eiranedd Evans, Garan Thomas, and Branwen.
Ormond’s early verse was largely imitative of Dylan Thomas’s style and is considered wordy. When older, Ormond himself was unhappy with his early work, judging that its “sound heavily overbore sense,” and he burned much of it. He did continue to publish poems in magazines throughout the 1950’s and early 1960’s, but not until the publication of Cathedral Builders did Ormond begin to achieve the spareness of style and degree of craftsmanship for which he is known.
He decided “to exorcise the devil of that long silence” in 1968 and put together a collection of poems he had written over the course of twenty five years. The collection, Requiem and Celebration, was published the following year. Continuing to publish in magazines as well, Ormond had a collection of his poems, Definition of a Waterfall, published by Oxford University Press in 1973 and a group of twenty-eight of his poems, eight of which had not previously been collected, were included in Penguin Modern Poets 27 in 1979.
Ormond received the Welsh Arts Council prize for literature in 1970 for Requiem and Celebration, a Welsh Arts Council Major Bursary for Writing in 1973, the Welsh Arts Council prize for literature in 1974 for Definition of a Waterfall, and the Cholmondeley Award in 1975.
John Ormond was known for his quiet, resonant, skillfully crafted poems that celebrate the dignity of human life in the face of the knowledge of mortality and the extraordinary beauty of the seemingly commonplace and everyday world.