Clive Wilmer

Clive Wilmer (born 10 February 1945) is a British poet, who has published nine volumes of poetry.

He is also a critic, literary journalist, broadcaster and lecturer.

Wilmer was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

He grew up in South London, where he attended Emanuel School, going on to read English at King's College, Cambridge.

He is the brother of writer and photographer Val Wilmer.

He has a daughter, a son and two grandsons.

He shares his life with the historian of science Patricia Fara.

He has had various teaching jobs in Italy – in Florence, Verona, Padua and Venice.

Wilmer was the prime mover of the Ezra Pound centenary exhibition Pound's Artists: Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts in London, Paris and Italy, held at Kettle's Yard and the Tate Gallery in 1985.

From 1986 to 1990, Wilmer was one of the four founding editors of the magazine Numbers.

He has contributed poems and articles to a wide range of newspapers and periodicals, including the Times Literary Supplement, PN Review and The London Magazine.

He has also broadcast for the BBC and from 1989-91 was chief presenter for the series Poet of the Month on Radio 3; most of the interviews made for that programme were transcribed in his book Poets Talking (1994).

Since 1995, he has been a Companion of the Guild of St George, the charity for arts, crafts and the rural economy, founded by Ruskin.

His many lectures both in Britain and overseas include: the Mikimoto Memorial Ruskin Lecture at Lancaster University (1996); the William Morris Birthday Lecture for the Friends of the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow (2014); the Ruskin Art Club’s annual Ruskin Lecture at California State University, Los Angeles (2016); the annual Ruskin Lecture for the Guild of St George (2019); and the first Ruskin Birthday Lecture at Notre Dame University, Indiana (2020).

He has also organised conferences, symposia and colloquies.

In recognition of this work, Wilmer was awarded the Endre Ady Memorial Medal by the Hungarian PEN Club in 1998; the Pro Cultura Hungarica medal by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture in 2005; and in Budapest in 2018, he received the Janus Pannonius Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in translation from Hungarian.

Wilmer's own poems have been translated into Hungarian, Italian and Spanish.

He was a Director of the Guild from 2004 to 2019 and the Master from 2009 to 2019.

He has also written extensively on William Morris.

He is the editor of Penguin selections of John Ruskin (Unto this Last, and Other Writings) and William Morris (News from Nowhere, and Other Writings).

In 2023 he will be presented with the annual Lifetime Achievement Award of the Ruskin Society of North America.

He is interested in the art of verse translation and has translated from several languages, In particular, he has translated in collaboration with the Hungarian poet George Gömöri.

Together they have published seven books of Hungarian poetry, including Miklós Radnóti, György Petri, János Pilinszky and Gömöri himself, as well as pieces by several others.

These include, at Sidney Sussex College in 2011, a conference for the quatercentenary of the King James Bible, and at the Museo Correr, Venice, in 2018, a symposium on Ruskin and Venice to accompany the exhibition John Ruskin: Le pietri di Venezia at the Ducal Palace there.

Among contemporary writers, Wilmer has written on the work of the poets Thom Gunn and Donald Davie and has edited volumes of their essays.

In 2015 he was a Visiting Professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

He is currently resident in Cambridge, where he is Emeritus Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.

He has also been an Honorary Fellow of Anglia Ruskin University, an Anniversary Fellow of Whitelands College, University of Roehampton, and an Honorary Patron of the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow.

Wilmer's poetry is usually formal but occasionally experimental.

He sees religion as fundamental to what he writes, yet he does not associate himself with a parochial view of spiritual matters.

His work is also marked by an enthusiasm for architecture and visual culture.

He is an advocate for the work of the Victorian critic, artist, philanthropist and social reformer John Ruskin.

His annotated edition of Gunn's Selected Poems was published by Faber and Faber in 2017.

He co-edited The Letters of Thom Gunn (2021).

His edition of The Essays of Thom Gunn is expected in 2024.