Peter Robinson was born on 18 February 1953 at Hope Hospital, Salford, Lancashire, the first son of a curate in the Church of England and a geography teacher who had left her job to be the wife of a priest. Peter grew up in his father’s parishes, urban areas of Greater Manchester, Wigan, and Liverpool. In September 1971, he went to the University of York, where he studied for an English Literature degree that included a compulsory foreign language element, gaining a first-class degree in English and Related Literature in June 1974.
Peter was writing poetry from the age of fifteen with his first printed verses appearing in sixth-form publications. As an undergraduate, he published poems in student magazines, and a couple of pamphlets of juvenilia shared with another student poet, Hugh Macpherson (1953-2001), and his girlfriend, later first wife, Rosemary Laxton. After leaving York, he spent some months in Bradford working as a benefits clerk, then in London as a hospital porter. The events of that 1975, and in particular the sexual assault which Peter witnessed at gunpoint in September, were to form the material for some of the poems in his 1988 publication This Other Life and to provide the plot outline for his novel, September in the Rain.
In the autumn of 1975, Peter began work on a doctorate in modern poetry at Cambridge and became involved with the poetry scene in the university and town. He co-edited the seven issues of the magazine Perfect Bound between 1976 and 1979 while also a member of the Cambridge Poetry Festival Society, working as secretary for the 1977 festival, co-ordinating the 1979 event, contributing to Italian events in 1983 and, as chairman, to the Ezra Pound centenary celebrations in 1985. Peter’s doctorate was awarded in 1981 for a thesis on the poetry of Donald Davie, Roy Fisher, and Charles Tomlinson.
During the 1980s, Peter held temporary teaching positions at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, then at Trinity College and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. During this period he co-edited the magazine Numbers with John Alexander, Alison Rimmer, and Clive Wilmer. In 1988, Maura Dooley invited him to act as advisor for the first of a new series of Poetry International festivals at the South Bank Centre in London.
In the summer of 1988, Peter was offered a visiting lectureship at Kyoto University, Japan, and was there for two years from 1989 to1991. During that period, he was invited to take up the post of visiting professor at Tohoku University, Sendai, which he held from 1991 to2005 While in Japan, Peter was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour. He returned to England to have it removed in May 1993. Peter was able to return to Japan in mid-September 1993 accompanied by Ornella Trevisan, whom he had first met in Cambridge in 1984. Ornella helped with the long convalescence that brain surgery entails, and they were married in February 1995 at the Italian Embassy in Tokyo. Family life with their two daughters was split between first Sendai, then Kyoto, Parma (Italy), and England until Spring 2007 when Peter was recruited to a chair in the School of English and American Literature at the University of Reading.
Since returning to England, as well as founding the creative writing programme and leading research at the university on poetry and poetics, Peter organised a centenary conference on the work of the poet Bernard Spencer (1909–1963), instigated the publication of an annual creative arts anthology, and helped found the Reading Poetry Festival. Peter has been poetry editor for Two Rivers Press, a poetry editor for the Fortnightly Review, and literary executor for the estates of the poets Roy Fisher (1930–2017) and Mairi MacInnes (1925–2017).
The information above is based on the autobiography written by Peter Robinson (Peter Robinson Autobiography. Available at: https://www.peterrobinsonpoet.co.uk/Autobiography.cfm (Accessed 13th December 2024).
Library Collection
Reference: Peter Robinson Collection Date: 1972 to date Extent: 400 titles (250+ vols + 140 journal titles)
Peter Robinson’s library includes his poetry, prose, fiction, essays and other writings; his translations of other poets, mostly from the French and Italian; as well as the numerous anthologies, poetry collections and major reference works that he contributed to, selected and edited over the years.
The collection also includes secondary sources, biographical and autobiographical works, dissertations and other material associated with the author (including publications issued by Pine Wave Press, which Robinson co-founded). A large part of the collection consists of periodicals in which Robinson’s poetry and translations appeared over the decades, ranging from international literary journals to little poetry magazines, often short-lived and with small circulations, and student publications from his university days.
The library was donated by Peter Robinson in 2023. He continues to collaborate with the University Special Collections and to add to the collections.
The collection is classified according to a simple in-house system that differentiates between the different genres of material represented. It is fully catalogued and available on Enterprise
Associated collections
Two Rivers Press Collection
Mairi MacInnes collection.
Additional copies of Peter Robinson’s main publications are available for loan at the Main Library, Whiteknights: https://rdg.ent.sirsidynix.net.uk/client/en_GB/library/search/results?qu=peter+robinson&lm=LIBRARY2
Archive Collection
Reference: MS 5761 Date: 1943-2022 Extent: c.65 boxes
Peter’s archive documents his work as a poet, writer, critic, translator, editor, events organiser, and university teacher, as well as his connections with contemporary poets, other literary practitioners, artists, academics, publishing houses, and arts organisations. The evolution of his creative process is evidenced in the many notebooks, worksheets, typescripts, annotated drafts and corrected proofs found within the archive.
More Information
- A full description is available on our online catalogue
- A handlist of the whole collection is available here
- See also Peter Robinson’s website
- University Collection
- Special Collections