Robin Skelton

 ( 1925 Births ) 

Skelton was an authority on Irish literature. He is well known for his work as a literary editor; he was a founder and editor, with John Peter, of The Malahat Review, and a translator. Skelton was a friend of the poet W. S. Graham, and helped archive some of Graham's work. David Nowell Smith, W. S. Graham :The Poem as Art Object. Oxford, Oxford University Press, (pg. 216) Known as a practising , Skelton also published a number of books on the subject of the occult and other neopagan religions.

Georges Zuk, a purported French surrealist poet, was a heteronym created by Skelton.

Writers he influenced include Jordan Stratford.

• Patmos, And Other Poems (1955)
• The Poetic Pattern (1956)
• Third Day Lucky (1958)
• The Cavalier Poets (1960)
• Begging the Dialect: Poems and Ballads (1960)
• Two Ballads of the Muse (1960)
• The Dark Window (1962
• A Valedictory Poem Upon His Departure from Manchester, England, for the New World (1963)
• An Irish Gathering (1964)
• A Ballad of Billy Barker (1965)
• Because of This and Other Poems (1968)
• The Hold of Our Hands : Eight Letters to Sylvia (1968)
• Selected Poems, 1947–1967 (1968)
• An Irish Album (1969)
• Answers: Poems (1969)
• The Hunting Dark (1971)
• Private Speech: Messages, 1962–1970 (1971)
• A Different Mountain, Messages 1962 – 1970: Poems And Photo-Collages (1971)
• Remembering Synge (1971)
• Musebook (1972)
• Three For Herself (1972)
• Country Songs (1973)
• Time Light (1974)
• The Limners (1975)
• Callsigns (1976)
• Mystics Mild: Song (1976)
• Because of Love (1977)
• Three Poems (1977)
• Landmarks (1979)
• They Call It the Cariboo (1980)
• Limits (1981)
• Collected Shorter Poems, 1947–1977 (1981)
• Zuk (1982)
• The Paper Cage (1982)
• De Nihilo (1982)
• Wordsong: Twelve Ballads (1983)
• The Collected Longer Poems, 1947–1977 (1985)
• Distances (1985)
• Telling the Tale (1987)
• Openings (1988)
• Celtic Contraries (1989)
• A Formal Music: Poems in Classical Metres (1993)
• Popping Fuchsias: Poems, 1987–1992 (1992)
• A Formal Music: Poems In Classical Metres (1993)
• Islands: Poems in The Traditional Forms And Metres Of Japan (1993)
• I Am Me: Rhymes For Small (1994)
• A Way of Walking : Poems in the Traditional Forms and Metres of Japan (1994)
• Wrestling the Angel: Collected Shorter Poems, 1947–1977 (1994)
• Samhain (1994)
• The Edge Of Time: Poems And Translations (1995)
• Three for Nick (1995)
• One Leaf Shaking: Collected Later Poems, 1977–1990 (1996)
• A Further Spring: Love Poems (1996)
• Lens of Crystal: Poems (1996)
• Long, Long Ago (1996)
• Love Poems: A Further Spring (1996)
• Or So I Say: Contentions and Confessions – A Happenstance Book (1998)
• The Shapes of Our Singing (1999)
• The Shapes of Our Singing: A Guide to the Meters and Set Forms of Verse from Around the World (2002)
• In This Poem I Am(2007)

• The Man Who Sang In His Sleep (1984)
• The Parrot Who Could (1987)
• Fires of the Kindred (1987)
• Hanky-Panky and Other Stories (1990)
• Higgledy Piggledy (1992)

• John Ruskin: The Final Years (1955)
• Teach Yourself Poetry (1963)
• The Practice of Poetry (1971)
• J. M. Synge and His World (1971, US title: The Writings of J. M. Synge)
• The Poet's Calling (1975)
• Poetic Truth (1978)
• Spellcraft: A Manual of Verbal Magic (1978)
• Herbert Siebner (1979)
• They Call It The Cariboo (1980)
• Magical Practice of Talismans (1985, US title: Talismanic Magic)
• Practice of Witchcraft Today: An Introduction to Beliefs & Rituals of the Old Religion (1988)
• A Gathering of Ghosts (1989, with Jean Kozocari)
• A Witches' Book of Ghosts and Exorcism (1990, with Jean Kozocari)
• Earth Air, Fire, Water : Pre-Christian and Pagan Elements in British Songs, Rhymes and Ballads (1990, with Margaret Blackwood)
• Practice of Witchcraft Today: An Introduction To Beliefs and Rituals (1990)
• The Record of A Logophile (1990)
• A Devious Dictionary (1991)

• The Memoirs of A Literary Blockhead (1988)
• Portrait of My Father (1989)

• Translations by J. M. Synge (1961)
• Edward Thomas: Selected Poems (1962)
• Collected Works of J. M. Synge (1962)
• Six Irish Poets: Austin Clarke, Richard Kell, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Richard Murphy, Richard Weber (1962)
• Penguin Book of Poetry of the Thirties (1963)
• Collected Poems of David Gascoyne (1965)
• The World of W B Yeats: Essays in Perspective (1965, with Anne Saddlemyer)
• Irish Renaissance: A Gathering of Essays, Memoirs and Letters from the Massachusetts Review (1965, with David R. Clark)
• Inscriptions (1967, with Herbert Siebner)
• Five Poets of the Pacific Northwest (1968)
• Poetry of the Forties (1968)
• Contemporary Poetry of British Columbia (1970)
• Collected Verse Translations of David Gascoyne (1970)
• Herbert Read: A Memorial Symposium (1970)
• Collected Plays of Jack B. Yeats (1971)
• Selected Poems Of Byron (1971)
• Introductions from an Island 1973: New Writing for Students in the Creative Writing Programme (1973)
• A Gathering in Celebration of the Eightieth Birthday of Robert Graves (1975, edited with William Thomas)
• Six Poets of British Columbia (1980)
• From Syria by Ezra Pound (1981)
• Herbert Siebner: A Celebration (1993)
• Dark Seasons A Selection of Georg Trakl Poems (1994)

• Georges Zuk: Selected Verse (1969)
• 200 Poems from the Greek Anthology (1971)
• The Underwear of the Unicorn by Georges Zuk (1975)
• George Faludy: Selected Poems, 1933–80 (1985)
• Briefly Singing : A Gathering of Erotic Satirical and Other Inscriptions Epigrams and Lyrics from the Greek and Roman Mediterranean 800 BC – AD 1000 Including the Complete Poems of Rufinus (1994)
• Rufinus. The Complete Poems (1997)

• Robin Skelton. The Record of A Logophile. Victoria: Reference West, 1990.
• Barbara L. Turner, ed. Skelton at 60. Erin, Ont.: Porcupine's Quill, 1986.

• Robin Skelton fonds at University of Victoria Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives
• Profile of Robin Skelton at The Wicca.ca
• Archive material at Leeds University Library
• A Short Biography
• Dundurn Press