Craig Anthony Raine,FRSL (born 3 December 1944) is an English contemporary poet. Along withChristopher Reid, he is a pioneer ofMartian poetry, a movement that expresses alienation with the world, society and objects.[1] He was a fellow ofNew College, Oxford, from 1991 to 2010 and is nowemeritus professor. He was the editor ofAreté from 1999 to 2020.
Raine was born inBishop Auckland, County Durham, the son of Norman Edward and Olive Marie Raine.[2] His father was the North of England amateurboxing champion in 1937.[3] He then worked as a bomb armourer for theRAF, until forced to retire due toepilepsy caused by a skull fracture.[4][3] After the RAF his father worked as a pub landlord.[3] Craig Raine was raised in aprefab inShildon, a town near Bishop Auckland.[5][6] He won a scholarship toBarnard Castle School, where he lived as a boarder.[6] Of his time there he has recalled that it seemed that everyone else's parents seemed to be:
accountants or surgeons or something. I couldn't say my father was an ex-boxer who did faith healing, had epileptic fits and lived off a pension. So for a while I said he was a football manager. But by the end I was inviting my friends home and they thought he was just as terrific as I did.[6]
Raine has commented on his education: "At Barnard Castle I was taught by an absolutely remarkable English teacher, Arnold Snodgrass, a friend ofW. H. Auden at Oxford [and laterRobert Graves]. There was no question that he altered my mindset on things and made me very critical."[4][7] At school he wrote "'pimplyDylan Thomas' poems, some of which he sent toPhilip Toynbee, then lead reviewer atThe Observer".[6]
Raine received his university education atExeter College,University of Oxford, where he received a BA in English and later received hisB.Phil.[6][8]
Raine taught at Oxford and followed a literary career as book editor forNew Review, editor ofQuarto, and poetry editor at theNew Statesman. He became poetry editor at publishersFaber and Faber in 1981, and has been a fellow ofNew College, Oxford, since 1991, retiring from his post as tutor in June 2010. He was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature in 1984.[9]
In 1972 he marriedAnn Pasternak Slater, a now retired fellow ofSt Anne's College, Oxford.[2] They have one daughter and three sons.Moses Raine is a playwright andNina Raine a director and playwright.[2]
Raine is founder and editor of the literary magazineAreté and a frequent contributor.[8] His works include a number of poetry collections:[10]The Onion, Memory (1978),A Martian Sends a Postcard Home (1979),A Free Translation (1981),Rich (1984),History: The Home Movie (1994), andClay. Whereabouts Unknown (1996). His reviews and essays are collected in two anthologies:Haydn and the Valve Trumpet (1990) andIn Defence ofT. S. Eliot (2000). A short critical-biographical study of Eliot,T. S. Eliot: Image, Text and Context, was published in 2007.
His friendIan McEwan argues that Raine espouses "very strong and clear, almostArnoldian, ideas of literature and criticism".[6]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
