Wilfrid Gibson

WILFRID GIBSON (1878 - 1962)

Gibson was born on Battle Hill in hexham, though only the room above the archway next to the post office remains. He wrote the lines for the fountain erected in the market place in 1901:

O you who drink my cooling waters clear
Forget not the far hills from whence they flow

Despite the fact that he went to London in 1912, and later lived in Gloucestershire, many of Gibson's poems both then and later, have Northumberland settings: 'Hexham's Market Cross'; 'Hareshaw'; and 'The Kielder Stone'. Others deal with poverty and passion amid wild Northumbrian landscapes. Still others are devoted to fishermen, industrial workers and miners, often alluding to local ballads and the rich folk-song heritage of the North East. Despite occasional powerful passages, however, they are often conventionally melodramatic and do not really convince nowadays, despite all the Northumbrian names they use. Gibson must be the only poet to set a dialogue on Bloodybush Edge.

Gibson's war poems are more immediate and every schoolchild used to know his 'Flannan Isle' about the three lighthouse-keepers who go mysteriously missing. Gibson was published in Edward Marsh's Georgian Poetry and was a friend of Rupert Brooke, who made him one of his heirs. Gibson was a most sweet-natured person, with a gift for friendship. Even D.H. Lawrence was charmed. Philip Larkin, in compiling the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse, complained of the poets he had to read through, and decided that Gibson had never written a good poem in his life. He eventually included no fewer than six Gibson poems all the same, and stated on his 'Desert Island Discs' appearance in 1976 his satisfaction at rehabilitating Gibson - 'a much underestimated poet'.

It still seems fashionable, if inadequate, to damn Gibson as 'Georgian' (i.e. pastoral and escapist) when one compares him to, say, Rupert Brooke. Gibson's work influenced Auden's Paid on Both Sides and he could certainly produce thrilling effects on occasion, as in the opening stanza of 'Lindisfarne'.

Jet-black the crags of False Emmanuel Head
Against the winter sunset: standing stark
Within the short sun's frosty glare, night-dark
A solitary monk with arms outspread...
With drooping head he seems to hang in air
Crucified on a wheel of blood-red fire.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
WILFRID GIBSON (1878 - 1962) Gibson was born on Battle Hill in hexham, though only the room above the archway next to the post office remains. He wrote the lines for the fountain erected in the market place in 1901: O you who drink my cooling waters clear Forget not the far hills from whence they flow Despite the fact that he went to London in 1912, and later lived in Gloucestershire, many of Gibson's poems both then and later, have Northumberland settings: 'Hexham's Market Cross'; 'Hareshaw'; and 'The Kielder Stone'. Others deal with poverty and passion amid wild Northumbrian landscapes. Still others are devoted to fishermen, industrial workers and miners, often alluding to local ballads and the rich folk-song heritage of the North East. Despite occasional powerful passages, however, they are often conventionally melodramatic and do not really convince nowadays, despite all the Northumbrian names they use. Gibson must be the only poet to set a dialogue on Bloodybush Edge. Gibson's war poems are more immediate and every schoolchild used to know his 'Flannan Isle' about the three lighthouse-keepers who go mysteriously missing. Gibson was published in Edward Marsh's Georgian Poetry and was a friend of Rupert Brooke, who made him one of his heirs. Gibson was a most sweet-natured person, with a gift for friendship. Even D.H. Lawrence was charmed. Philip Larkin, in compiling the Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Verse, complained of the poets he had to read through, and decided that Gibson had never written a good poem in his life. He eventually included no fewer than six Gibson poems all the same, and stated on his 'Desert Island Discs' appearance in 1976 his satisfaction at rehabilitating Gibson - 'a much underestimated poet'. It still seems fashionable, if inadequate, to damn Gibson as 'Georgian' (i.e. pastoral and escapist) when one compares him to, say, Rupert Brooke. Gibson's work influenced Auden's Paid on Both Sides and he could certainly produce thrilling effects on occasion, as in the opening stanza of 'Lindisfarne'. Jet-black the crags of False Emmanuel Head Against the winter sunset: standing stark Within the short sun's frosty glare, night-dark A solitary monk with arms outspread... With drooping head he seems to hang in air Crucified on a wheel of blood-red fire.
Return to Index	On to next Author