John Thompson

Who was John Thompson?

John Thompson was an English-born Canadian poet.

John Thompson was born in Timperley in 1938. Following the death of his father and abandonment by his mother, he was educated at various boarding schools and the Manchester Grammar School. He received his B.A. in honours psychology from the University of Sheffield in 1958. Following two years service in the British Army intelligence corps, he studied comparative literature at Michigan State University and received his Ph.D. He studied under A. J. M. Smith and his thesis entailed the translation of poems by the French poet René Char. In 1966 he moved to Canada and taught English literature at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, where he lived in a farmhouse and formed a close friendship with then-poet-in-residence at University of New Brunswick, Warren Kinthompson. His first collection of poetry, At the Edge of the Chopping there are no Secrets, received mixed reviews. This was followed by a divorce and a fire that consumed his home and most of his manuscripts. He wrote the 38 poems in his second - and last - collection, Stilt Jack, while in Toronto on a sabbatical.

The cause of his death at the age of 38, immediately after Stilt Jack was completed, remains the subject of debate. In the fall of 1975, Thompson wrote his will. At Christmas, he broke down and was hospitalized. On his release three months later, instead of abiding by the doctor's orders not to mix drugs and alcohol, he continued to drink steadily. He finished Stilt Jack in April. On April 24, he gave the manuscript to his friend and fellow poet, Douglas Lochhead. After returning home, the tenants in the apartment below heard muffled choking and cries. He was discovered comatose-and pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. James Polk describes the cause of death as "a brutal mix of barbiturates and liquor." The autopsy did not provide conclusive evidence that Thompson killed himself.