Paul Potts

Who was Paul Potts?

Paul Hugh Howard Potts, a British-born poet of Canadian extraction, was the author of Dante Called You Beatrice, a memoir of unrequited love.

Born in Datchet, Berkshire to a Canadian father and an Irish mother, Potts was educated in Canada, England and Italy, but from the early 1930s he lived in London. He frequented the Soho-Fitzrovia area where he would sell broadsheet copies of his poetry in the streets and pubs.

Among Potts's literary friends were George Orwell and the English poet George Barker. Potts's memoir of Orwell, "Don Quixote on a Bicycle", appeared in The London Magazine in 1957 and became a chapter of Dante Called You Beatrice. His 1948 essay “The World of George Barker” appeared in Poetry Quarterly.