John Hewitt (poet) facts for kids
John Harold Hewitt (born October 28, 1907 – died June 22, 1987) was a very important poet from Belfast. He was one of the most significant poets from Northern Ireland before famous writers like Seamus Heaney came along in the 1960s. John Hewitt was the first ever writer-in-residence at Queen's University Belfast in 1976. This means he was a special writer invited to work and teach at the university.
Some of his well-known poetry collections include The Day of the Corncrake (1969) and Out of My Time: Poems 1969 to 1974 (1974). He received many honors during his life. He was made a Freeman of the City of Belfast in 1983. This is a special award given to respected citizens. He also received honorary doctorates from the University of Ulster and Queen's University Belfast.
From 1930 to 1957, Hewitt worked at the Belfast Museum & Art Gallery. He had strong socialist ideas, which means he believed in fairness and equality for everyone. These ideas were not popular with some powerful people in Belfast at the time. Because of this, he was not promoted in 1953. Instead, in 1957, he moved to Coventry, a city in England that was still being rebuilt after being badly damaged in World War II. In Coventry, Hewitt became the Director of the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. He worked there until he retired in 1972.
Hewitt was very active in politics. He called himself "a man of the left," meaning he supported socialist and progressive ideas. He was involved with the British Labour Party, the Fabian Society, and the Belfast Peace League. He was interested in the unique culture and identity of Ulster and saw himself as having many identities: Ulster, Irish, British, and European. John Hewitt officially opened the Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre (BURC) offices on Mayday in 1985.
His life and work are remembered in two main ways. There is an annual John Hewitt International Summer School, which is a big event celebrating literature and arts. Also, a popular pub in Belfast is named after him: The John Hewitt Bar and Restaurant. It opened in 1999 on Donegall Street. The pub was named after him because he officially opened the Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre, which owns the pub. It's a popular spot for local writers, musicians, journalists, students, and artists to meet. Both the Belfast Festival at Queen's and the Belfast Film Festival use the pub for their events.
Contents
John Hewitt's Life and Writing Journey
Growing Up and Early Education
John Hewitt first went to Agnes Street National School. Then, from 1919 to 1920, he attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. After that, he moved to Methodist College Belfast, where he was a very keen cricketer.
In 1924, he started studying English at the Queen's University of Belfast. He earned his BA degree in 1930. After that, he got a teaching qualification from Stranmillis College, also in Belfast. During these years, his interest in radical and socialist causes grew stronger. He listened to James Larkin speak at a Labour rally. He also started writing for different trade union and socialist newspapers. He even helped start a journal called Iskra. Hewitt also attended the Northern Ireland Labour Party Annual Conference in 1929 and 1930 as a delegate from Belfast City. He did not agree with the idea of a workers’ republic in the party's rules.
In 1930, Hewitt became an Art Assistant at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. One of his jobs was to give public talks about art. At one of these talks, he met Roberta "Ruby" Black, who he married in 1934. Roberta also strongly believed in socialism. The couple became members of the Independent Labour Party, the Belfast Peace League, the Left Book Club, and the British Civil Liberties Union.
How His Writing Developed
Hewitt began trying out poetry when he was still a schoolboy at Methodist College in the 1920s. He was very organized, and his notebooks from these years are full of hundreds of poems. He wrote in many different styles. At this time, Hewitt was mainly inspired by poets like William Blake, William Morris, and W. B. Yeats. Most of his early poems were either very romantic or strongly socialist. The socialist themes became even more important as the 1930s began. William Morris was a key influence because he combined both romantic and socialist ideas. This allowed Hewitt to express the radical, dissenting spirit he inherited from his Methodist family, including his father.
As the 1920s turned into the 1930s, Hewitt's writing started to get better and more mature. First, the writers who inspired him, like Vachel Lindsay, became more modern. Second, he discovered Chinese poetry, which had a "quiet and undemonstrative but clear and direct" voice. This style matched a part of Hewitt's personality that he had not fully expressed before. Finally, and most importantly, he began his lifelong work of exploring and discovering the poetry of Ulster. He started with Richard Rowley, Joseph Campbell, and George William Russell (AE). This research led to publications like Fibres, Fabric and Cordage in 1948. He also wrote Rhyming Weavers and other Country Poets of Antrim and Down in 1974, which was based on his MA thesis from 1951. Another book, The Rhyming Weavers, came out in 1979. All these books were based on his interest in the Ulster rhyming weaver poets of the 1800s. These poets included Henry MacDonald Flecher, David Herbison, Alexander MacKenzie, James MacKowen, and James Orr.
Hewitt himself felt that his early, less mature poems ended with the poem Ireland (1932). He placed this poem at the beginning of his Collected Poems (1968). This poem is more complex than most of his earlier work. It also marks the start of his lifelong focus on bleak landscapes of bog and rock, on being away from home, and on what it means to belong.
Poetry in the 1930s
The 1930s were a time of change in Hewitt's poetry. He began to seriously explore the difficult history of his home province, Northern Ireland. He wrote about the conflict between his love for the people and the land, his inspiration from the radical dissenting tradition, and the violent conflicts that still affect Northern Ireland today.
A very important poem from this time is The Bloody Brae: A Dramatic Poem. He finished it in 1936. It tells the story of a legendary massacre of Roman Catholics by Cromwellian soldiers in Islandmagee, County Antrim, in 1642. In the poem, John Hill, one of the soldiers, feels terrible guilt about his part in the killing. Many years later, he returns to ask for forgiveness. He receives this forgiveness from the ghost of one of his victims. However, she also tells him that he is too focused on his own guilt instead of taking action to fight against prejudice.
Another important idea that appeared in Hewitt's poetry in The Bloody Brae was a strong statement about his people's right to live in Ulster. This right was based on their hard work and dedication to the land:
- This is my country; my grandfather came here
- and raised his walls and fenced the tangled waste
- and gave his years and strength into the earth
Also in the 1930s, Hewitt was involved with a group of young artists and sculptors called the 'Ulster Unit'. He worked as their secretary.
The 1940s and 1950s
From the late 1930s, Hewitt was part of a group of Linen Hall Library members who often met at Campbell's Cafe in Belfast's city center. This group included writers like John Boyd, Denis Ireland, Sam Hanna Bell, and Richard Rowley. Actors such as Joseph Tomelty, Jack Loudon, and J.G. Devlin were also part of the circle. The poet Robert Greacen, artists Padraic Woods, Gerard Dillon, Harry Cooke Knox, and William Conor, and the Rev. Arthur Agnew (who spoke out against sectarianism) also joined them. The lively atmosphere of this group was the background for Campbell's Cafe appearing in Brian Moore's wartime novel, The Emperor of Ice-Cream.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Hewitt increasingly worked as a reviewer and art critic. He earned his MA degree from Queen's University Belfast in 1951. His master's thesis was about Ulster poets from 1800 to 1870. In 1951, he was made deputy director and keeper of art at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. But in 1957, Hewitt left Belfast to become the Art Director at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry. He held this job until 1972. While in Coventry, Hewitt started writing his autobiography, A North Light, which was not published during his lifetime. He moved back to Belfast when he retired in 1972. The John Hewitt Estate and Four Courts Press later published A North Light: twenty-five years in a Municipal Gallery in 2013.
John Hewitt's Lasting Impact
The John Hewitt Society was created in 1987 to remember his life and work. Its goal is "to promote literature, arts, and culture inspired by the ideals and ideas of the poet John Hewitt." The Society organizes an annual summer school, continuing his legacy.
See also
- List of Irish writers
