Elma Mitchell

Mitchell was born in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire.{{Cite web |title=Elma Mitchell |url=https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/elma-mitchell/ |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=Scottish Poetry Library |language=en-GB}} She attended Prior's Field School in Surrey, and won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a first in English in 1941.[https://archive.priorsfieldschool.com/Filename.ashx?tableName=ta_priorsfieldmagazine&columnName=filename&recordId=52 "Prior's Field, 1941"] Prior's Field Magazine (1941): 1, 8. She went on to achieve a diploma in librarianship at the School of Librarianship, University College London.

Mitchell worked as a librarian and information officer for the BBC during World War II (from 1941 to 1943). She moved to Buckland St Mary, Somerset, and worked as a freelance writer and translator; she also did some amateur archaeological work in South Cadbury.{{Cite journal |date=1969 |title=News from the Branches |url=https://priorsfield.cook.websds.net/Filename.ashx?tableName=ta_oldgirlsmagazine&columnName=filename&recordId=3 |journal=Prior's Field Old Girls' Magazine |issue=79 |pages=4}} Some of her poems were published in New Statesman in the 1960s. Her "quirkily original" poem "Thoughts After Ruskin" was first published in 1967; it won awards and was included in several anthologies.{{cite news |author=Chambers |first=Harry |date=5 December 2000 |title=Elma Mitchell:A poet linking the great and small issues of life |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/dec/05/guardianobituaries |work=The Guardian}} She published several books of poetry in the 1970s and 1980s.

Many of Mitchell's poems have feminist themes of domestic work, body image, creative frustration, and bereavement.{{Cite book |last=Dowson |first=Jane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JMtqyxmo5j8C&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PA180&dq=Elma%20Mitchell&pg=PA131#v=onepage&q=Elma%20Mitchell&f=false |title=A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry |last2=Entwistle |first2=Alice |date=2005-05-19 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-81946-6 |pages=131 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Duffy |first=Carol Ann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ht04N156uVkC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PA41&dq=Elma%20Mitchell&pg=PA41#v=onepage&q=Elma%20Mitchell&f=false |title=I Wouldn't Thank You for a Valentine: Poems For Young Feminists |date=1997-11-15 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-8050-5545-0 |pages=41 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Jeffries |first=Lesley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=35BKEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PA106&dq=Elma%20Mitchell&pg=PA106#v=onepage&q=Elma%20Mitchell&f=false |title=The Language of Twentieth Century Poetry |date=1993-09-28 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-349-23000-6 |pages=106-107 |language=en}} "Mitchell frequently alludes to the strength tapped from the life force of routine necessities and occupations, especially women's traditional occupations," noted Marilyn Hacker in 1997.{{Cite journal |last=Hacker |first=Marilyn |author-link=Marilyn Hacker |date=1989 |title=Unauthorized Voices: U. A. Fanthorpe and Elma Mitchell |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25007278 |journal=Grand Street |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=147–164 |doi=10.2307/25007278 |issn=0734-5496|url-access=subscription }} "This is a woman who is very conscious of being a body with all that implies of delight and restriction," commented poet Herbert Lomas in 1988.{{Cite journal |last=Lomas |first=Herbert |date=1988 |title=Review of People Etcetera |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44340195 |journal=Ambit |issue=112 |pages=68–69 |issn=0002-6972}}

Mitchell died in 2000, at the age of 81, in Buckland St Mary, Somerset. Her poems continue to be included in anthologies, decades after her death.{{Cite book |last=McMillan |first=Dorothy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HRsCLI2_c8sC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PR10&dq=Elma%20Mitchell&pg=PA95#v=onepage&q=Elma%20Mitchell&f=false |title=Modern Scottish Women Poets |date=2010-07-01 |publisher=Canongate Books |isbn=978-1-84767-507-1 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Kizer |first=Carolyn |url=https://archive.org/details/onehundredgreatp00caro/mode/2up?q=Elma |title=100 great poems by women : a golden Ecco anthology |date=1995 |publisher=Hopewell, N.J. : Ecco Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-88001-422-9}}

• 1977 Cheltenham Festival Poetry Competition{{Cite book |last=Fanthorpe |first=U. A. |url=https://archive.org/details/uafanthorpeelmam0000fant |title=U.A. Fanthorpe, Elma Mitchell, Charles Causley |date=1996 |publisher=London : Penguin Books |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-14-058754-8}}
• 1999 Cholmondeley Award{{Cite web |title=Cholmondeley Awards |url=https://societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/cholmondeley-awards/ |access-date=2025-04-07 |website=The Society of Authors |language=en-GB}}

• {{cite book| title=The Poor Man In The Flesh |location=Manchester| publisher=Harry Chambers/Peterloo Poets| year=1976| isbn=978-0-905291-04-8 }}{{Cite journal |last=Curry |first=Neil |date=1977 |title=Review of The Poor Man in the Flesh |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44331996 |journal=Ambit |issue=72 |pages=65–65 |issn=0002-6972}}
• {{cite book| title=The Human Cage |location=Manchester|publisher=Harry Chambers/Peterloo Poets| year=1979| isbn=978-0-905291-22-2 }}{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Elma |url=https://archive.org/details/humancage0000mitc |title=The human cage |date=1979 |publisher=Liskeard : Harry Chambers/Peterloo Poets |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-905291-22-2}}
• {{cite book| title=Furnished Rooms|location=Manchester| publisher=H. Chambers, Peterloo Poets| year=1983| isbn=978-0-905291-47-5 }}{{Cite journal |last=Burns |first=Jim |date=1983 |title=Review of Furnished Rooms |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44334878 |journal=Ambit |issue=94 |pages=77–78 |issn=0002-6972}}
• {{cite book| title=People Etcetera: Poems New & Selected |location=Manchester| publisher=Peterloo Poets| year=1987| isbn=978-0-905291-84-0 }}{{Cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Elma |url=https://archive.org/details/peopleetceterapo0000mitc |title=People etcetera : poems new & selected |date=1987 |publisher=Calstock, Cornwall : Peterloo Poets |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-905291-84-0}}

• {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/edinburghbookoft0000unse |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/edinburghbookoft0000unse/page/241 241] |quote=Elma Mitchell. |chapter=The Crucifixion Will Not Take Place |title=The Edinburgh book of twentieth-century Scottish poetry |editor1=Maurice Lindsay |editor2=Lesley Duncan |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7486-2015-9}}
• {{cite book| title=Penguin Modern Poets|author=U. A. Fanthorpe |author2=Elma Mitchell |author3=Charles Causley | publisher=Penguin| year=1996| isbn=978-0-14-058754-8 }}
• Carolyn Kizer (1995). 100 Great Poems by Women. Ecco Press. {{ISBN|978-0-88001-422-9}}
• Dorothy McMillan (2010). Modern Scottish Women Poets. Cannongate Books. {{ISBN|978-1-84767-507-1}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/historyoftwentie0000dows| url-access=registration| page=[https://archive.org/details/historyoftwentie0000dows/page/100 100]| quote=Elma Mitchell.| title=A history of twentieth-century British women's poetry| author=Jane Dowson, Alice Entwistle| publisher=Cambridge University Press| year=2005| isbn=978-0-521-81946-6 }}
• {{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-sunday-poem-1098514.html| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103160619/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-sunday-poem-1098514.html| archive-date=November 3, 2012| title=THE SUNDAY POEM: No 26 Elma Mitchell| author=Ruth Padel| date=6 June 1999| work=The Independent}}

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Category:1919 births

Category:2000 deaths

Category:20th-century Scottish poets

Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford