A. S. J. Tessimond
Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (
July 19,
1902 -
May 13,
1962 in
Birkenhead) was a
poet.
After studying in
Liverpool he moved to
London where he worked in a bookshop. He later moved to
France.
After avoiding military service in
World War II, he later discovered he was unfit for service.
An eccentric and an
Imagist, Tessimond wrote astute, elegant poetry. He suffered from depression and received electro shock treatment.
He first began to publish in the 1920s in literary magazines. He was to see three volumes of poetry were published during his life:
Walls of Glass in 1934,
Voices in a Giant City in 1947 and
Selections in 1958. He contributed several poems to a 1952 edition of
Bewick's Birds.
He died in 1962 from a
brain haemorrhage.
In the
mid-1970s he was the subject of a radio programme entitled
Portrait of a Romantic. This, together with the publication of the posthumous selection
Not Love Perhaps in 1972, increased interest in his work; and his poetry subsequently appeared in school books and anthologies.
A 1985 anthology of his work
The Collected Poems of A. S. J. Tessimond contains previously unpublished works.
*
A.S.J. Tessimond Poetry and Translations at the Open Translation Project sponsored by
Bryant H. McGill
