Judith Elizabeth Kazantzis (; 14 August 1940 – 18 September 2018) was a British poet and political and social activist.
Life
Kazantzis was born in
Oxford and grew up in
East Sussex, the fourth child and second daughter of the eight children born to Lord and Lady Longford, and sister of novelist Rachel Billington and historians
Antonia Fraser and Thomas Pakenham. She attended St Leonards-Mayfield School, and then More House School in
Kensington. She wrote her first poem aged seven. She took a Modern History degree at Somerville College, Oxford. She began writing textbooks on history, worked for the Chelsea Labour Party and reviewed for the
Evening Standard. She avoided the usage of the title "Lady" as the daughter of an earl. During the 1970s she turned to poetry, fiction, painting and printmaking. She was a committed feminist, writing for the magazine
Spare Rib,
and was strongly influenced by
Sylvia Plath's poetry.
In her own poetry she wrote about injustice and contributed short stories to Critical Quarterly, which Plath had also written for. She supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and joined the protestors at RAF Greenham Common air base in the 1980s. She lived in London and later in East Sussex again, and spent three months a year in Key West where her second husband, Irving Weinman, taught.
In the 1990s, she worked for Kalayaan – Justice for Migrant Domestic Workers. In 1999, she left Tony Blair's Labour Party, and since 2001 helped campaign for Occupied Palestine (she was a founder of British Writers in Support of Palestine).[ The Recusant eZine, therecusant.org.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2016.]
Her poems have appeared in The London Magazine, Stand, Ambit, Agenda, Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Bete Noire, The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry Ireland, Red Pepper, The Independent, New Statesman, Tribune, and Banipal.[ Banipal magazine website , banipal.co.uk. Retrieved 23 March 2016.]
Marriage
She married lawyer Alexander John Kazantzis on 26 February 1963 and had two children. The couple divorced in 1982, but she kept his surname professionally. On 22 February 1998, she married lawyer and writer Irving Weinman.
Harry Mathews wrote an
epithalamium for Judith Kazantzis and Irving Weinman.
[Arlo Haskell, "The Epithalamium of Harry Mathews" , Littoral, 29 May 2008.]
Death
Judith Kazantzis died on 18 September 2018, aged 78,
from undisclosed causes. She was survived by two children, two stepchildren, and six siblings.
Awards
Works
Poetry
Fiction
Translator
Anthologies
-
Christmas Cards (Enitharmon Press, 2005)
-
A Celebration of Wilfred Owen (The Interpreter's House)
-
Poems On The Underground (Cassell, 2001)
-
Parents (Enitharmon 2000)
-
Red Sky At Night (Many Leaves Press, 2003)
-
A Ring of Words (Arvon Prize Anthology, 1998)
-
Mind Readings, Dancing in the Street, The Faber Book of Blue Verse and the Virago Book of Love Poetry.
-
Poems on the Underground featured her poem "Freight Song" (Cassell).
Essays
External links
