Edward Lucie-Smith

John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith (born 27 February 1933) is a British poet, critic and anthologist. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to the United Kingdom in 1946.

Edward Lucie-Smith in 2006

Quotes

• It's ten years since I heard, and
  Then one day a letter comes.
  It's neutral stuff, until I
  Delve into the envelope
  Again and find your photo,
  Handsome still, and not a line
  To tell me why you sent it.
  • Poem A Former Lover

• A poet of my kind
  Skates on the thinnest ice.
  • Poem Postcard

• My uncle [mother’s brother] wrote rather twee books of memoirs in the period between the two World Wars. They’d be deeply embarrassing to read today. In the 19th century my mother’s family were involved with the Pre-Raphaelites, and a direct ancestor of mine was Lady Byron’s lawyer, who advised her to leave the poet because of her husband’s affair with his half-sister. A much earlier ancestor on my mother’s side was chaplain to Richard Corbet, Bishop of Oxford, who wrote the poem ‘Farewell Rewards and Fairies’. In his ‘Brief Lives’ Aubrey describes them getting drunk together in the cellars of Christchurch, Oxford.
  • From an interview