- published: 10 Oct 2015
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John Thompson (17 Mar 1938 – 26 Apr 1976) was an English-born Canadian poet.
John Thompson was born in Timperley in 1938. Following the death of his father and abandonment by his mother, he was educated at various boarding schools and the Manchester Grammar School. He received his B.A. in honours psychology from the University of Sheffield in 1958. Following two years service in the British Army intelligence corps, he studied comparative literature at Michigan State University and received his Ph.D. He studied under A. J. M. Smith and his thesis entailed the translation of poems by the French poet René Char. In 1966 he moved to Canada and taught English literature at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, where he lived in a farmhouse and formed a close friendship with then-poet-in-residence at University of New Brunswick, Warren Kinthompson. His first collection of poetry, At the Edge of the Chopping there are no Secrets (1973), received mixed reviews. This was followed by a divorce and a fire that consumed his home and most of his manuscripts. He wrote the 38 poems in his second - and last - collection, Stilt Jack, while in Toronto on a sabbatical.