Jack Blackmore

Jack Blackmore spent most of his childhood in Essex and studied Greek and Philosophy at Hull University. After a career in social work he retired from the East Riding of Yorkshire Council in 2006, but continued to work freelance until 2014, when he gave up work to look after his wife, Kate, in her final illness. Although he has published no poetry since the early 1980s he has retained a commitment to poetry in general and to the work of Laura Riding, in particular. In addition to The Unthronged Oracle other work is planned, including an edition of Riding’s penultimate collection of poems, Poet: A Lying Word, with an introduction and an explanatory essay on one of the poems. This is due to be published by Nottingham Trent Editions in 2017.

Since leaving the south of England to come to Hull he has lived most of his life in various places in East Yorkshire. He sees his two adult children and two grandchildren, who live in Derby and Leeds, on an almost weekly basis.