Geoffrey Grigson was born in 1905, the youngest of seven sons of the Rev. William Shuckforth Grigson (1845-1930), a Norfolk man who had settled in Cornwall and became vicar of Pelynt, and Mary Beatrice Boldero. The inscription on his father's slate headstone in Pelynt churchyard is the work of Eric Gill, 1931. Grigson was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Geoffrey Grigson first came to prominence in the 1930s as a poet, then as editor from 1933 of the influential poetry magazine New Verse. Fiercely combative, he made many literary enemies for his dogmatic views.
At various times he was involved in teaching, journalism and broadcasting. During World War II he worked in the editorial department of the BBC Monitoring Service at Wood Norton near Evesham.
Later in life he was a noted critic, reviewer (for the New York Review of Books in particular), and compiler of numerous poetry anthologies. He published 13 collections of poetry, and wrote on travel, on art (notably works on Samuel Palmer, Wyndham Lewis and Henry Moore), on the English countryside, and on botany among other subjects.
Geoffrey Grigson in his later life lived partly in Wiltshire, England and partly in Trôo, a village in the Loir-et-Cher département in France which features in his poetry.
Geoffrey Grigson's first wife was Frances Galt (who died in 1937 of tuberculosis). With her, he founded New Verse. They had one daughter, Caroline (who was married to the designer Colin Banks). His second marriage was to Berta (Bertschy) Emma Kunert, who bore him two children, Anna and Lionel Grigson, the jazz musician and educator. Following their divorce, his third and last marriage was to Jane Grigson, née McIntire (1928-90), the writer on food and cookery. Their daughter is the cookery writer Sophie Grigson.
C. Day Lewis - E. V. Swart - Bernard Spencer - Philip O'Connor - Louis MacNeice - George Barker - Kathleen Raine - Frederic Prokosch - A. J. Young - Archibald MacLeish - Norman Cameron - Stephen Spender - Geoffrey Taylor - Dylan Thomas - A. J. M. Smith - W. H. Auden - Pablo Neruda - Geoffrey Grigson - Hugh Chisholm - Kenneth Allott - Alberto Giacometti - Paul Éluard - Bernard Gutteridge - Ruthven Todd - Gavin Ewart - Charles Madge
Drummond Allison - Kenneth Allott - W. H. Auden - George Barker - John Bayliss - John Betjeman - Norman Cameron - Cecil Day Lewis - William Empson - G. S. Fraser - Christopher Fry - David Gascoyne - Geoffrey Grigson - John Hewitt - Esmé Hooton - Glyn Jones - Sidney Keyes - James Kirkup - Laurie Lee - Louis MacNeice - Charles Madge - Hubert Nicholson - Norman Nicholson - Clere Parsons - Kathleen Raine - W. R. Rodgers - E. J. Scovell - John Short - Bernard Spencer - Stephen Spender - Derek Stanford - Dylan Thomas - Evan Thomas - Ruthven Todd - Rex Warner - Vernon Watkins
