Peter Dale (poet)
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21 August 1938
Peter Dale | |
|---|---|
| Born | Peter John Dale 21 August 1938 Addlestone, Surrey, England |
| Died | 25 June 2024 (aged 85) Cardiff, Wales |
| Occupation | Poet, translator |
| Nationality | British |
| Genre | Poetry |
Peter John Dale (21 August 1938 – 25 June 2024) was a British poet and translator particularly noted for his skilful but unobtrusive use of poetic form.
Dale was born in Addlestone, Surrey, on 21 August 1938. He took his BA in English at St Peter's College, Oxford, where he studied between 1960–3.[1] He became Chair of the University Poetry Society succeeding his friend, the American Marshall Scholar, Wallace Kaufman, and made friends during this period with fellow poets Ian Hamilton[2] and William Cookson. He soon joined the latter as associate editor and later co-editor of Agenda until 1996. Other friends from that time whose careers intersected with his own were Kevin Crossley-Holland, Yann Lovelock and Grey Gowrie.
A teacher until his retirement in 1993, Dale eventually became Head of English at Hinchley Wood School. Besides his many collections of verse, other books include translations of François Villon, Jules Laforgue, Tristan Corbière and Dante, as well as several interviews with other poets and translators. A few of his own poems refer to his classroom experience, but in general he has remarked that "I like to work in absolute silence, which is hardly what a classroom has to offer. During invigilations the odd epigram could be managed."[3] A selection of such epigrams was eventually published in 2007.
Another side of Dale's work was his skill in drawing out a poet in conversation, based not only on a knowledge of his work but the insight available to a fellow practitioner. In 1993, he had interviewed Ian Hamilton for Agenda.[4] Then in 1997 Hamilton proposed the Between the Lines series of in-depth interviews over dinner with Dale and Philip Hoy. These were to be more wide-ranging than the usual interview and of book length.[5] Over the next three years Dale was to interview Michael Hamburger, Anthony Thwaite and Richard Wilbur for this series.
In 1963, Dale married Pauline Strouvelle, with whom he had a son and a daughter.[6] After 2008, he moved to live in Cardiff. He died there on 25 June 2024, aged 85.[7]
Poetic style
Dale is particularly noted for his skilful use of poetic form, as for example in the sustained use of terza rima in his translation of Dante. His own poems, though usually formal on the surface, employ numerous variations in rhyme, metre and line length, though some of his own poems are short and free, and he took some liberties even in his most traditional work. He himself has said that "a poet shouldn't draw attention to his stylistic self; the poem should be a lens through which something crucial is seen."[8]
Dale's lyric style is intimate whilst avoiding the histrionic pitfalls of the confessional mode. The poems themselves often address another person, but in the main avoid biographical reference. The tension in the poetry is generated by attempts to communicate and frustration that such efforts are never wholly successful, as implied by the title of his sonnet sequence One Another. He takes this demonstration of the clash between dialogue and duologue further in his later sequence Local Habitation in which three points of view are counterpointed through a narrative of changing relationships and moods.
Although his poetry has sometimes been described as quiet, Dale has answered that "Sentences in their rhythms and juxtapositions may be more passionate than words as words. To give one example, the emotion in "A Time to Speak" isn't to be found in individual words but in the sentence rhythms, the tension between speech-rhythm and metric, the pauses, the timing and, on this occasion, the images. But the poem won't seem much to anyone with little experience of life."[8]
