Bromsgrove born poet receives knighthood (From Bromsgrove Advertiser)

Bromsgrove born poet receives knighthood

2:17pm Tuesday 3rd January 2012 in News

A BROMSGROVE born poet has received a knighthood in the New Year Honours.

Geoffrey Hill, 79, is well regarded in the world of poetry and has won a plethora of literary prizes.

Last year he was elected Oxford's Professor of Poetry, after winning a vote by an overwhelming margin among Oxford graduates.

Professor Hill was born in Bromsgrove and brought up in Fairfield where his father was a village policeman.

He was educated at Bromsgrove County High School, today North Bromsgrove High School, then moved on to Keble College, Oxford.

Throughout his career the poet has held academic posts at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Boston University in America, and has had more than 12 poetry books published.

His grandmother toiled as a nailer, making handmade nails in Lickey End, and in his early work he wrote a tribute to her memory and how her childhood and prime womanhood were spent in a nailshop at the back of a cottage.

Increasingly in latter years his work focused back to his childhood memories, and to Bromsgrove.

Now based in Cambridge, the poet and critic has been given the knighthood for services to literature.