JAMES KIRKUPJames Kirkup, who died on 10 May, 2009, aged 91, was a prolific British poet who caused a mass controversy in the 1970s.His poem The Love that Dares to Speak its Name, graphically describing a fictitious affair between a Roman centurion and Jesus Christ, was published by Gay News in 1976, leading to a successful lawsuit from Mary Whitehouse on the grounds of blasphemy.Years later the poem remained an important symbol of the right to free speech. In 2002 it was the subject of a civil disobedience demonstration led by gay rights leader Peter Tatchell in which it was read in full and distributed freely around London on leaflets. Police monitored the event but no arrests were made.The storm heightened Mr Kirkup’s international reputation as a poet. He had been a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1962 and taught English at numerous universities, not only in Britain but also in Sweden, America and Japan.He was born in South Shields in the North East of England on 23 April, 1918, and studied at Durham University. He was a conscientious objector to the Second World War, working on the land, before resuming his academic career at Leeds University. In 1950 the university made him the first resident university poet in the United Kingdom.After various teaching positions, he relocated to the Far East in the late 1950s and continued to work from there. He had published his first poetry collection in 1947 and throughout his life he wrote several dozen more. He also penned six volumes of autobiography, academic papers, translations, journalism and travel writing.Since the 1990s he been living in Andorra and his most recent volume of poetry was published in 2008. It was launched at the South Shields Central Library which holds a large collection of his works.As well as his RSL fellowship, his honours included the Atlantic Award for Literature from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1950, the Japan P.E.N. Club Prize for Poetry in 1965, the Scott Moncrieff Prize for Translation in 1992 and the Japan Festival Foundation Award in 1997.
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