C.H. Sisson, a prolific British poet, novelist and critic, died on Sept. 5. Cause of death was not released. He was 89.
Sisson graduated from Bristol University then joined the Ministry of Labor in 1936. During World War II, he served with the British army on India’s northwest frontier. He returned to civil service after the war to work as the director of occupational safety and health in the Department of Employment.
Although he published his first anthology, “The London Zoo,” in 1961, Sisson did not become well-known for his poetry until 13 years later when he released, “The Trojan Ditch.” He also published the novels, “Christopher Homm” and “An Asiatic Romance,” as well as two books of criticism and half a dozen poetry collections.
September 22, 2003 by
C.H. Sisson
Categories: Writers/Editors
C.H. Sisson was a good man. I suppose I’m prejudiced, since the two or three letters I wrote to him were replied to courteously and promptly. Not an experience I take for granted from writers, many of whom have simply ignored my missives from the antipodes. He also commented kindly but candidly on some verses I sent him and put me straight on some silly errors in metre.
I came across his work first in the long defunct magazine X which published such other fine writers as John Heath-Stubbs, George Barker and (I think) P.J.Kavanagh.
He was the kind of conservative, like Geoffrey Hill, who is truly concerned to conserve what has been and is best, not merely to obstruct the new. In fact his novel *Christopher Homm* was avant-garde in its way. A fact lost on anyone who dismissed it.
I will miss him a lot.