Elizabeth Jennings
born July 18, 1926, Boston, Lincolnshire,
England
died October 26, 2001, Bampton, Oxfordshire
English poet whose works relate intensely
personal matters in a plainspoken,
traditional, and objective style and whose
verse frequently reflects her devout Roman
Catholicism and her love of Italy.
Jennings was educated at Oxford High
School and St. Anne’s College, Oxford. Her
first pamphlet, Poems, appeared in 1953,
followed by A Way of Looking (1955), which
won her a Somerset Maugham Award and enabled
her to visit Italy. Song for a Birth or a
Death (1961) marked a new development, with
its confessional tone and more savage view
of love. Some of the best of her later poems
concern her nervous breakdown and its
aftermath, such as those collected in
Recoveries (1964) and The Mind Has Mountains
(1966). Other works include The Animals’
Arrival (1969), Lucidities (1970),
Relationships (1972), Extending the
Territory (1985), and Familiar Spirits
(1994). A translation, The Sonnets of
Michelangelo (1961), was revised in 1969.
She also published poetry for children. In
1992 Jennings was made a Commander of the
British Empire.
