Elizabeth Jennings was born in 1926 in Boston, Lincolnshire where her father was a respected Chief Medical Officer. The family moved to Oxford when she was six years old and she discovered poetry while attending Oxford High School.
After attending St Anne's College, Oxford, Elizabeth became a librarian at Oxford city library.
Having more time to focus on her writing she published her first collection of poetry in 1953. This drew her to the attention of Robert Conquest, who included her work in his "New Lines Anthology" alongside famous writers like Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, and Thom Gunn.
Throughout the 1960's, Elizabeth was one of the most popular poets in England. She never married and published a great number of works. Elizabeth once said, "I write fast and revise very little".
ONE FLESH
Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere - it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.
Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do, it is like a confession
Of having little feeling - or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.
Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?
Elizabeth Jennings (1926 - 2001)
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