Robin Skelton, Professor

Born: October 12, 1925 - Easington, Yorkshire, England
Parents: Cyril and Lili Skelton
Married: 1957 - Sylvia Jarrett
Children: One son, two daughters
Deceased: August 22, 1997 - Victoria, British Columbia

Life and Times:

Robin Skelton was born October 12, 1925 an only child to Cyril and Lili Skelton in Easington, Yorkshire, England. While living in England he studied at the Pocklington Grammar School, University of Leeds (receiving his MA in 1951), and Cambridge University. In his early 20's (1944 to 1947) Robin served with the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force in India as a codes and cypher clerk with the rank of sergeant.

Robin became an Assistant Lecturer (1951) and then Lecturer (1954) in English at Manchester University, and then Centenary Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts in 1962. In 1963 he moved to Greater Victoria, British Columbia becoming Associate Professor of English (1963-66) and then Professor (1966-91) at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Robin served as Founder Chairman of Department of Creative Writing 1973-76.

Robin became interested in the occult after having moved to Canada, believing as he wrote in his 1988 autobiographical work, The Memoirs of a Literary Blockhead, that he had developed healing psychic powers. In their 1990 jointly written book, Robin and Jean Kozocari wrote of their experiences in ghostly phenomenon and exorcisms. He became an initiated Wiccan during his later life and wrote the books on witchcraft: and magick including: Spellcraft (1978), Talismanic Magic (1985), and The Practice of Witchcraft Today (1988).

Carol for Yule

The bonfires of midwinter burn;
we conjure up the sun's return.

This is the black depth of the year
in which the seasons, circling near,
are pulled into the vortex; here
the bonfires of midwinter burn.

The quickening spirits of the Spring
whirl round their bright bewildering,
and with the energies they bring
we conjure up the sun's return.

The Summer's heavy heat and bloom
is swept into December's gloom
and heady ripeness fills the room.
The bonfires of midwinter burn.

The fallen leaves and fruits of Fall
attend us, and, as we recall
that grey rain's ever drifting shawl,
we conjure up the sun's return.

We gather round the towering tree
in whose perpetual green we see
this old earth's ancient potency.
The bonfires of midwinter burn.

The radiant necklace threaded bright
within the leaves reclaims delight
for darkness and within its light
we conjure up the sun's return.

Traditions ancient as the earth
tell how within this cold and dearth
there blooms miraculous rebirth.
The bonfires of midwinter burn,

and we lift up our voices to
the heart of life that will renew
itself in us and all we do.
The bonfires of midwinter burn;
we conjure up the sun's return.

Published Works:

Poetry

Patmos, And Other Poems (1955)
The Poetic Pattern (1956)
Third Day Lucky (1958)
The Cavalier Poets (1960)
Begging the Dialect: Poems and Ballads (1960)
Two Ballads of the Muse (1960)
The Dark Window (1962
A Valedictory Poem Upon His Departure from Manchester, England, for the New World (1963)
An Irish Gathering (1964)
A Ballad of Billy Barker (1965)
Because of This and Other Poems (1968)
The Hold of Our Hands : Eight Letters to Sylvia (1968)
Selected Poems, 1947-1967 (1968)
An Irish Album (1969)
Answers: Poems (1969)
The Hunting Dark (1971)
Private Speech: Messages, 1962-1970 (1971)
A Different Mountain, Messages 1962 – 1970: Poems And Photo-Collages (1971)
Remembering Synge (1971)
Musebook (1972)
Three For Herself (1972)
Country Songs (1973)
Timelight (1974)
The Poet's Calling (1975)
The Limners (1975)
Callsigns (1976)
Mystics Mild: Song (1976)
Because of Love (1977)
Three Poems (1977)
Poetic Truth (1978) - Chapters.ca
Landmarks (1979)
They Call It the Cariboo (1980)
Limits (1981)
Collected Shorter Poems, 1947-1977 (1981)
Zuk (1982)
The Paper Cage (1982)
De Nihilo (1982)
Wordsong: Twelve Ballads (1983)
The Collected Longer Poems, 1947-1977 (1985)
Distances (1985)
Fires Of the Kindred (1987)
Telling the Tale (1987)
Openings (1988)
Celtic Contraries (1989)
A Formal Music: Poems in Classical Metres (1993)
Popping Fuchsias: Poems, 1987-1992 (1992) - Chapters.ca
A Formal Music: Poems In Classical Metres (1993)
Islands: Poems in The Traditional Forms And Metres Of Japan (1993) - Chapters.ca
I Am Me: Rhymes For Small (1994)
A Way of Walking : Poems in the Traditional Forms and Metres of Japan (1994) - Chapters.ca
Wrestling the Angel: Collected Shorter Poems, 1947-1977 (1994)
Samhain (1994)
The Edge Of Time: Poems And Translations (1995) - Chapters.ca
Three for Nick (1995)
One Leaf Shaking: Collected Later Poems, 1977-1990 (1996)
A Further Spring: Love Poems (1996)
Lens of Crystal: Poems (1996)
Long, Long Ago (1996) - Chapters.ca
Love Poems: A Further Spring (1996)
Or So I Say: Contentions and Confessions - A Happenstance Book (1998) - Chapters.ca
The Shapes of Our Singing (1999)

Fiction

The Man Who Sang In His Sleep (1984)
The Parrot Who Could (1987)
Fires of the Kindred (1987)
Hanky-Panky and Other Stories (1990)
Higgledy Piggledy (1992)

Non-fiction

John Ruskin: The Final Years (1955)
Teach Yourself Poetry (1963)
The Practice of Poetry (1971)
J. M. Synge and His World (1971, U.S. title: The Writings of J. M. Synge)
Spellcraft: A Manual of Verbal Magic (1978) - Used Copies
Herbert Siebner (1979)
They Call It The Cariboo (1980)
Magical Practice of Talismans (1985, U.S. title: Talismanic Magic) - Used Copies
Practice of Witchcraft Today: An Introduction to Beliefs & Rituals of the Old Religion (1988) - Chapters.ca Used Copies
A Gathering of Ghosts (1989, with Jean Kozocari) - Used Copies
A Witches' Book of Ghosts and Exorcism (1990, with Jean Kozocari) - Used Copies
Earth Air, Fire, Water : Pre-Christian and Pagan Elements in British Songs, Rhymes and Ballads (1990, with Margaret Blackwood) - Used Copies
Practice of Witchcraft Today: An Introduction To Beliefs and Rituals (1990)
The Record of A Logophile (1990)
A Devious Dictionary (1991) - Chapters.ca

Memoirs

The Memoirs of A Literary Blockhead (1988) - Used Copies
Portrait of My Father (1989)

Anthologies

Translations by J. M. Synge (1961)
Edward Thomas: Selected Poems (1962)
Collected Works of J. M. Synge (1962)
Six Irish Poets: Austin Clarke, Richard Kell, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Richard Murphy, Richard Weber (1962)
Penguin Book of Poetry of the Thirties (1963)
Collected Poems of David Gascoyne (1965)
The World of W B Yeats: Essays in Perspective (1965, with Anne Saddlemyer)
Irish Renaissance: A Gathering of Essays, Memoirs and Letters from the Massachusetts Review (1965, with David R. Clark)
The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation (1966, with Thomas E. Marston and George O. Painter)
Inscriptions (1967, with Herbert Siebner)
Five Poets of the Pacific Northwest (1968)
Poetry of the Forties (1968)
Contemporary Poetry of British Columbia (1970)
Collected Verse Translations of David Gascoyne (1970)
Herbert Read: A Memorial Symposium (1970)
Collected Plays of Jack B. Yeats (1971)
Selected Poems Of Byron (1971)
Introductions from an Island 1973: New Writing for Students in the Creative Writing Programme (1973)
A Gathering in Celebration of the Eightieth Birthday of Robert Graves (1975, edited with William Thomas)
Six Poets of British Columbia (1980)
From Syria by Ezra Pound (1981)
Herbert Siebner: A Celebration (1993)
Dark Seasons A Selection of Georg Trakl Poems (1994)
The Shapes of Our Singing: A Guide to the Meters and Set Forms of Verse from Around the World (2002)

Translations

Georges Zuk: Selected Verse (1969)
200 Poems from the Greek Anthology (1971)
The Underwear of the Unicorn by Georges Zuk (1975)
George Faludy: Selected Poems, 1933-80 (1985)
Briefly Singing : A Gathering of Erotic Satirical and Other Inscriptions Epigrams and Lyrics from the Greek and Roman Mediterranean 800 BC - AD 1000 Including the Complete Poems of Rufinus (1994)
Rufinus. The Complete Poems (1997)

On the Web:

Biographical information predominantly sourced from Obituary: Professor Robin Skelton, Robin Skelton of Easington, Poet, Literary Scholar, and Witch, and Wikipedia.