Jack Clemo

Reginald John Clemo (Jack Clemo) (March 11 1916 - July 25 1994) was a British poet and writer, strongly associated both with his native Cornwall and his Christian belief. His work is visionary and inspired by the Cornish landscape. He was the son of a clay-kiln worker, and his mother, Eveline Clemo (née Polmounter, died 1977), was a dogmatic Nonconformist.

He was born near St. Austell, and had no formal schooling after age 13. He became deaf around age 20, and blind in 1955. His early work was published in the local press; he first received recognition in connection with the Festival of Britain.

The massive clay mines and works around which he grew up feature strongly in his work.

Works

• Wilding Graft (1948) novel
• Confession of a Rebel (1949) autobiography
• The Clay Verge (1951) poems
• The Invading Gospel (1958) theology
• The Map of Clay(1961) poems
• Cactus on Carmel (1967) poems
• The Echoing Tip (1971)
• Broad Autumn (1975)
• Selected Poems (1988)
• Approach to Murano (1993) poems Bloodaxe
• The Cured Arno (1995) poems Bloodaxe
• The Awakening - Poems Newly Found edited by John Hurst, Alan M. Kent and Andrew C. Symons
• The Shadowed Bed novel
• The Clay Kiln novel