The Writers of Wales Database

GOWRIE, GREY

Grey Gowrie was born in Dublin in 1939. Educated and professionally engaged in England and the USA, he lived in Ireland until 1983 when he moved to the Welsh Marches. Grey taught English and American literature at Harvard and University College London and in 1972, on publishing his first collection of poems, exchanged an academic career for business and political life. He has been a company chairman, a Cabinet minister, Chairman of the Arts Council of England and Provost of the Royal College of Art. Grey is married to the German journalist Adelheid von der Schulenburg and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He still lives in the Marches and is a Member of Academi. 

Reviews:
With respect to Third Day: New and Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2008):

“… (this title) not only contains the best of this poet’s fine work over the past 35 years but gives us ‘The Domino Hymn’, a sequence of 13 poems which lifts his work into greatness. They describe the poet’s journey through an operation to replace his heart. There is no self-pity or bravado here. What we have is reflection, humour and telling observation: a memorable epic…”
Melvyn Bragg, The Observer


Selected Publications: 
Postcard from Don Giovanni (Oxford University Press, 1972)
Francis Bacon (Exhibition, 1983)
Derek Hill, An Appreciation (Quartet Books, 1987)
Keith Vaughan: Modern British Paintings, Drawings And Sculpture. From The Collection Of The Late Sebastian Walker (Sotheby’s, 1991)
An Irish Thaw: Culture and Possibility After the Ceasefire (Arts Council of England, 1995)
Aspects of a Novel (Greville Press, 2005)
Dingle (Greville Press, 2005)
The Domino Hymn: Poems from Harefield (Agenda & Editions Charitable Trust, 2005)
For George Herbert (Greville Press, 2006)
Gardner’s Tale (Greville Press, 2006)
Third Day: New and Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2008)

Contributed to:
The Wings of a Dove by Henry James (introducer) (Everyman’s Library, 1997) 
Poems by Thomas Campion (editor) (Greville Press, 2007)
Ann Stokes: Artists’ Potter (co-editor) (Lund Humprhies, 2009)
Greville Press Anthology (co-editor) (Carcanet, 2010)