Richard Marggraf Turley

Richard Marggraf Turley (born 2 August 1970) is a British author and literary critic. In 2013, he was appointed Professor for Engagement with the Public Imagination at Aberystwyth University. He works in the university's Department of English and Creative Writing.

Life

Marggraf Turley was born in the Forest of Dean.

His first collection of poetry The Fossil Box was published by Cinnamon Press in 2007. Robert Minhinnick, editor of Poetry Wales, praised its "rare and intense musicality". The poems are concerned with the urgency of place and origins. He is also co-author, with Damian Walford Davies, of Whiteout (Parthian, 2006). In 2008, Marggraf Turley signed with Salt, who published a new collection entitled Wan-Hu's Flying Chair in March 2009.

In 2007, he won first prize in the tenth-anniversary Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry. His poem, "Elisions", was written on the competition theme of slavery. He has made appearances on Radio 3's The Verb, presented by Ian McMillan. He performed with Damian Walford Davies at the 2009 Guardian Hay Festival. Both read at the 2010 Hay Festival.

In 2010, together with Professor Reyer Zwiggelaar and Dr Bashar Rajoub of the Computer Science department at Aberystwyth University, Marggraf Turley conducted a "Valentine's Day experiment" using thermal imaging cameras to determine whether reading love poetry produced distinct thermal signatures on the faces of volunteers. Over 50 million images were recorded, amounting to five terabytes of data.^[1] Also in 2010, he won the Wales Book of the Year "People's Choice" award (sponsored by Media Wales) for Wan-Hu's Flying Chair.

In March 2012, new research on Keats's ode "To Autumn", co-authored with Dr Jayne Archer and Professor Howard Thomas (Aberystwyth University), was featured on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and in UK newspapers. Archival discoveries suggested that the "stubble-plains" of Keats's ode "To Autumn" were located not only along Winchester's water-meadows beside the River Itchen, but also on St Giles's Hill, to the east of the city, with implications for a new political reading of the poem. The part of St Giles's Hill in question now lies under a multi-storey car park: listeners to BBC Radio Solent's "Julian Clegg Breakfast Show" sent in poems inspired by the story.^[2][3][4][5] The editor of the Telegraph devoted 22 March 2012's editorial to an "Ode to a Car Park" ^[6]

Marggraf Turley has written a number of books on Keats and the Romantic poets, including Keats's Boyish Imagination, which caused some controversy in the Times Literary Supplement. He is Co-Director of the Centre for Romantic Studies, Aberystwyth. He writes a blog on topics related to Romantic literature. He was one of the three English-panel judges for the Wales Book of the Year 2013.

Poetry collections

• 2009: Wan-Hu's Flying Chair, Salt Press, ISBN 978-1844714438*
• 2007: The Fossil-Box, Cinnamon Press, ISBN 978-1-905614-35-6 *
• 2006: Whiteout, co-authored with Damian Walford Davies, Parthian, ISBN 978-1-905762-15-6

Critical studies

• 2011: (ed.) The Writer in the Academy: Creative Interfrictions, Boydell and Brewer, ISBN 978-1-84384-278-1 *
• 2009: Bright Stars: Keats, Barry Cornwall and Romantic Literary Culture, Liverpool University Press, ISBN 978-1-84631-211-3 *
• 2006: The Monstrous Debt: Modalities of Romantic Influence in Twentieth-Century Literature, co-ed. with Damian Walford Davies, Wayne State University Press, ISBN 978-0-8143-3058-6 *
• 2004: Keats's Boyish Imagination, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-28882-8 *
• 2002: The Politics of Language in Romantic Literature, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-333-96898-7 *
• 2000: Writing Essays: A Guide for Students in English and the Humanities, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-23013-1 *

Awards and recognition

• 2007: Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry
• 2010: Wales Book of the Year "People's Choice" award (sponsored by Media Wales)

References

External links

• Personal blog
• Richard Marggraf Turley's poem, "Elisions, The Telegraph
• University profile
• Metro interview with Richard Marggraf Turley
• "Aberystwyth University in poetry 'fevered brow' test " 9 February 2010, BBC