Jeni Couzyn

Standard Name: Couzyn, Jeni
Birth Name: Jeni Couzyn
JC , poet of the twentieth century and later, calls herself a blend of several nationalities (South African, British, and Canadian) and of many identities. She is a feminist anthologist as well as a poet, author of spare but effective literary criticism in the form of introductions and headnotes.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Fleur Adcock
From early in her career FA was an insightful critic as well as a poet, and her judgements were already informed by a matured understanding of the shaping force of gender. Dannie Abse included her...
Anthologization Ruth Fainlight
Most of RF 's poetry volumes list a number of journals in which her poems have originally appeared. For a few years the New Yorker regularly carried her poems (which delighted her, both for the...
Anthologization Denise Levertov
DL supplied a lyrical five-page essay on her childhood for Jeni Couzyn 's Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets, 1985.
Couzyn, Jeni, editor. The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe Books, 1985.
75-9
Literary responses Kathleen Raine
She stood as a candidate for election as Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1968, but was unsuccessful. (Four years later John Betjeman told her that she would have been a better choice for Poet...
Literary responses Stevie Smith
Her reputation has been building steadily. Jeni Couzyn called her an original voice in poetry with no back-up tradition and no imitators, a performer of daredevil dance with poetic form.
Couzyn, Jeni, editor. The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe Books, 1985.
37
Romana Huk published a...
Literary responses Patricia Beer
Responses to PB 's poetry have varied widely, even among her fellow poets. Jeni Couzyn has charged her with the crime of not rocking the boat, of making herself a favourite . . . for...
Occupation Stevie Smith
During this decade she developed her successful career as a public reader and performer. The younger poet Jeni Couzyn later wrote of her unforgettable appearance, trembling like a frail bird on the stage of the...
Textual Production Anne Stevenson
AS feels that the label woman poet has a stereotyping effect which is not conducive to either the wr iting or the reading of poetry.
Stevenson, Anne. Between the Iceberg and the Ship. University of Michigan Press, 1998.
88
She has expressed her views about the experience of...

Timeline

October 1978
The Penguin Book of Women Poets appeared, edited by Carol Cosman , Joan Keefe , and Kathleen Weaver , with three further consulting editors.