History
Leicester Poetry Society has some 30 members, including both established poets and non-writing members who enjoy reading, discussing and listening to poems.
The Society was started in the early 1950’s by a very lively character, Harold Frankel.
GS Fraser, poet and academic arrived in Leicester to a University appointment in the English Department in 1958. Fraser ran a poetry workshop at Vaughan College for 20 years, where Frankel joined his class. Fraser became engrossed with poetry teaching in the provinces (hitherto he had led a sociable literary life in Chelsea ) and took over chairmanship of the Poetry Society. See http://jacketmagazine.com/20/fraser.html for more about G S Fraser, who is pictured right. His wife, Paddy, who can be seen in the background with a cat, is still the Society’s President.
G S Fraser was the acclaimed author of many books, including The Modern Writer and his World, Metre, Rhyme and Free Verse and Essays on Twentieth Century Poets. An annual lecture is held in May in his memory.
Established poets from all corners of the globe have read at the Leicester Poetry Society.
More recent readers have included Jack Mapanje, Neil Astley, Amanda Dalton, Robin Robertson, Jane Draycott, Ian Duhig, Alan Halsey, David Kennedy, Geraldine Monk, Andrew Duncan, Peter Forbes, Lavinia Greenlaw, Pauline Stainer, W.N.Herbert, Paul Farley, EA Markham, Mimi Khalvati, Pascale Petit, Christopher Logue, Katrina Porteous, John Hartley Williams, Robert Minhinnick, Vicki Feaver, Peter Porter, Lawrence Sail, Myra Schneider, Robert Crawford, Sam Smith, Charles Tomlinson, Jackie Kay, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Charles Bennett, Anne-Marie Fyfe, Michael Haslam, Richard Burns, Philip Gross, Wendy Cope, Marianne Boruch, Alison Flett and Tom Leonard.
Robert Lowell, Jon Silkin, Robert Graves, Stevie Smith, Veronica Forrest-Thompson, Gavin Ewart, C.H.Sisson were among the noted names of the past.
Hello there, Ill be honest with you, im adopted, and have been tracing my family history, sadly ive found out my mother Miranda Frankel died 10 years ago. Ive recently found out my grandad Harold Frankel loved poetry and founded this society. The strange thing is I too like reading, art, and poetry, even though the rest of my adoptive family werent too keen! Id love to know more about Harold, who I know died in 1968 at Braziers Park, Oxford, the year before I was born.If you know anything of him or his work please contact me,
Susan (Lucinda Frankel)
Susan (Lucinda)
if you’d contact me via e-mail at david.bircumshaw@ntlworld.com I can see about putting you in touch with people who knew your grandfather – he was a little before my time but only last night I was talking to an LPS veteran who recalled Harold in conversation – he was described as ‘living for poetry’.
best
david bircumshaw