Description

Admin History:

Herbert ('Howard') Sergeant was born in Hull in 1914 and qualified as an accountant. He served in the RAF and the Air Ministry during the Second World War and with the assistance of his friend Lionel Monteith, edited and published the first issue of his poetry magazine 'Outposts' in February 1944. Outposts is the longest running independent poetry magazine in Britain. Sergeant had been writing poetry since childhood and his first poem to be published was 'Thistledown magic', in 'Chambers Journal' in 1943. 'Outposts' was conceived in wartime and its early focus was on poets 'who, by reason of the particular outposts they occupy, are able to visualise the dangers which confront the individual and the whole of humanity, now and after the war' (editorial, 'Outposts', no.1). Over the decades, the magazine specialised in publishing unrecognised poets alongside the well established. Sergeant deliberately avoided favouring any particular school of poetry, and edited 'Mavericks: an anthology', with Dannie Abse, in 1957, in support of this stance. Sergeant's own poetry was included in the first issue of 'Outposts' (but rarely thereafter) and his first published collection, 'The Leavening Air', appeared in 1946. He was involved in setting up the Dulwich Group (a branch of the British Poetry Association) in 1949, and again, when it re-formed in 1960. In 1956, Sergeant published the first of the Outposts Modern Poets Series of booklets and hardbacks devoted to individual poets. During his lifetime he served on the Executive Councils of the PEN, the English Association, the National Book League and the Poetry Society, as well as on the panel of judges for the EC Gregory Awards and many other poetry awards and competitions. His work as a poetry editor reached far beyond 'Outposts', and he specialised particularly in Commonwealth poetry and children's poetry, as well as lecturing on how to teach poetry to children. Alongside his literary work, he had a career first as a company accountant, and then from 1963, as a lecturer. He retired as head of the School of Management at Brooklands Technical College in Weybridge in 1978 and received an MBE in the same year. After a gap of many years, he began to write poetry again and several of his anthologies date from the 1980s, including his 'Selected poems'. After his death in 1987, the editorship of 'Outposts' was taken over by Roland John.

Roger Elkin studied English at the University of Hull and subsequently worked as a teacher at Riley High School, Hull. He is the author of 11 poetry collections and was the recipient of the inaugural Howard Sergeant Memorial Award for Services to Poetry in 1987. He was also poetry tutor at residential weekend courses at Wedgwood College, Barlaston; literary advisor to the Leek Arts Festival, for whom he organised an International Poetry Competition (1982-1992); the co-editor of Prospice (1985-1988) and editor of Envoi (1991-2006), both literary magazines.

Description:

A small collection containing; 69 letters from Howard Sergeant to Roger Elkin, 1980-1986; Letters and photocopies of letters from Jean Sergeant to Roger Elkin; Nomination form for the Howard Sergeant Memorial Award for Services to Poetry - Judy Seago nominating Roger Elkin; Flyers for "Outposts" and Sergeant's collection "Fairground Familiars".