A01=A. S. J. Tessimond
Author_A. S. J. Tessimond
Category=DC
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eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_poetry
Faber Finds
Modernism
Satire
Product details
- ISBN 9780571242214
- Weight: 78g
- Dimensions: 135 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 29 May 2008
- Publisher: Faber & Faber
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Arthur Seymour John Tessimond - Jack to his family, John in later life - was born in Birkenhead in 1902 and made his living as an advertising copywriter, but his true writing life was in poetry, three volumes of which he published in his lifetime: The Walls of Glass (1934), Voices in a Giant City (1947), and Selection (1958). Tessimond died in May 1962, two months shy of his sixtieth birthday, and it would fall to Hubert Nicholson, his friend and executor, to make a posthumous selection of his work including a number of uncollected and unpublished poems. Not Love Perhaps (1978) has at its heart the memorable title piece which contrasts the idea of romantic love 'that many waters cannot quench' with the notion of a mutual companionship that enables two people to 'walk more firmly through dark narrow places'.
A.S.J. Tessimond (1902-1962) was born in Birkenhead. His education was at Charterhouse, before running away at sixteen, and Liverpool University. On coming to London he worked in bookshops for a time before becoming a copywriter. After avoiding military service in World War II, he later discovered he was unfit for service. An eccentric, he has been well described as a night-lifer, loner and flaneur. He loved women, was always falling in love, but never married. In later life, he became manic-depressive which neither psycho-analysis nor electric shock therapy could cure. He died of brain haemorrhage in his Chelsea flat.
Three volumes of verse were published during his lifetime: 'The Walls of Glass' (1934), 'Voices in a Giant City' (1947) and 'Selection' (1958). He was a minor poet but a distinctive one
