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Tony Harrison

Poet and playwright

Black and white photo of a man wearing a flat cap and sitting in front of a bookshelf Tony Harrison, by Mark Gerson, 12 February 1999, NPG x88096, © Mark Gerson / National Portrait Gallery, London

Poems include ‘V’ and verse plays include adaptations of the English medieval Mystery Plays, the Oresteia and Trackers of Oxyrhynchus.

The ‘scholar’ me, you, worn out on poor pay
only our silence made us a pair.

From ‘Book Ends’ in From ‘The School of Eloquence’ and Other Poems (London: Rex Collings, 1978)

So right, yer buggers, then! We’ll occupy
your lousy leasehold Poetry.

From ‘Them & [uz]’ in Selected Poems (London: Penguin, 1987)