Garlick, Raymond

Person

Garlick, Raymond

1926-2011

Raymond Garlick (1926-2011), Anglo-Welsh poet and critic, was born on 21 September 1926 in Harlesden, London, but was sent to live with relatives in Llandudno as a schoolboy. He learnt Welsh whilst studying English at the University of North Wales, Bangor. Garlick married Elin Hughes in 1948 (they divorced in 1977); the couple adopted two children, Iestyn in 1952 and Angharad in 1958. In April 1949 he went to teach English at Pembroke Dock County School under Roland Mathias. There he was a co-founder of the literature periodical Dock Leaves (from 1958 the Anglo-Welsh Review), and its first editor, 1949-1960. In 1954 he moved to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where his neighbour was John Cowper Powys. In 1961 Garlick joined the International School at Eerde in the Netherlands. The family returned to Wales in 1967 when Garlick took up a position at Trinity College, Carmarthen. He eventually became Principal Lecturer in charge of the Welsh Studies course. He retired in 1987 but continued to live in Carmarthen. He died in Cardiff on 19 March 2011, aged 84. Garlick published several volumes of poetry including Poems from the Mountain-House (London, 1950), The Welsh-Speaking Sea (Tenby, 1954), Requiem for a Poet (Tenby, 1954), Blaenau Observed (Tenby, 1957), A Sense of Europe (Llandysul, 1968), A Sense of Time: Poems and Antipoems 1969-1972 (Llandysul, 1972), Incense (Llandysul, 1976), Collected Poems 1946-86 (Llandysul, 1987), and Travel Notes (Llandysul, 1992). Garlick's contribution as a champion of Anglo-Welsh literature includes the critical treatise An Introduction to Anglo-Welsh Literature (Cardiff, 1970), and the anthology Anglo-Welsh Poetry 1480-1980, ed. by Raymond Garlick and Roland Mathias (Bridgend, 1984).