IVOR C. TREBY

 

 

STARING THROUGH WINDOWS:

IVOR C. TREBY,

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

 

‘I looked from out the window

a snowstorm swirled and blew’

[Transmitted in the blood. Ivor Treby]

 

 

The poet, Ivor Treby, was meticulous in recording the events in his life, especially the birth and development of his poems and there is a wealth of archive material awaiting discovery; as yet, there is no definitive biography or complete works, perhaps it is for some future enthusiast to perform these tasks which surely must be amended. I have come to admire and appreciate Treby through his poems which resonate with me deeply and in writing this brief biographical sketch, if another soul also feels that same pull and desire towards him, then I am satisfied, for he should be more known and his work applauded. It is thanks to other poets, such as John Dixon, whose tremendous effort in producing Treby’s unpublished poems in 2014 has helped to keep Treby’s memory alive and given me so much pleasure. I am sure it is mere coincidence that the publishing of this humble article coincides with the anniversary of Ivor’s death in 2012 – may he rest gently…

Ivor Francis Charles Treby was born on Thursday 19^th January 1933 in Plymouth, Devon, the only child of master shipwright, Frederick Herbert Treby (1898-1976) and Phyllis Daisy Hayes (1908-1975). Frederick, (1) who was born in Newton Abbot on 12^th October 1898, and Phyllis (2), born in Devonport on 6^th March 1908, was married in Devon in 1929. Ivor’s grandfather, James Charles Hayes, born in Tiverton, Devon on 3^rd January 1878, served as a Petty Officer stoker, 295725, in the Royal Navy on HMS Monmouth during the Great War and was one of 734 men who went down with the ship during the Battle of Coronel, just off Chile on 1^st November 1914 (3). Ivor’s great uncle, Francis James William Shaw, born in Stoke Damerel, Devon on 12^th October 1889 (brother of his grandmother, Louisa Minnie Shaw 1884-1960), was a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, 346575, serving on HMS Dublin during the Great War which saw action in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Francis died of war-related wounds on 4^th July 1918 aged 28 and was buried in Plymouth’s Weston Mill Cemetery (CWWG) (4).

The Treby family moved from Plymouth to Barrow in Furness and young Ivor went to Barrow Grammar School for Boys in 1944 (5). He went on to Devonport High School in 1949 and two years’ later sat for his ‘A’ Levels in physics, chemistry and mathematics and in 1952 he won a scholarship to Exeter College, Oxford to study biochemistry. After graduating in 1955, Ivor became lecturer and Senior Science tutor at Concord College in Tunbridge Wells; in London he acted with the Richmond Shakespeare Society and taught biochemistry at several establishments: City of Westminster College, Paddington College, Chiswick Polytechnic and Paddington College. He gained his M.A. from Oxford in 1960 and in 1963 his address was: 33, South Down Road, Beacon Park, Plymouth. It was while he was working at Chiswick Polytechnic during 1963 that he met the two greatest loves of his life: Colin Hilton and Philip Vaughan, the former, Ivor intended to settle down with and bought a house in 1969 at 17, Cambridge Road, Twickenham, but it did not work out and Colin seemed to drift away; the latter, Philip, remained a constant vision of love to Ivor, yet an impossible dream… (6)

Ivor’s mother, Phyllis Treby died on Wednesday 23^rd April 1975, and the following year, his father, Frank Herbert Treby died on Sunday 12^th September 1976.

In 1978 the Gay Authors Workshop (GAW) was set up and its first public reading was at the Bloomsbury Tavern, New Oxford Street, London on Friday 30^th June; Treby became a member that year, remaining for several years.

Treby retired from teaching in 1985 while living in Earls Court and Fulham and then began travelling across Britain, Europe and the rest of the world, giving poetry readings; he travelled to Tunisia in 1990, Sydney Australia in 1993 and Peru in September 1994; he also collected sand from the places he visited and his collection was donated to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, London.

In London in the mid 1980’s Treby set up his own small press, De Blackland Press, to publish his own works (‘De Blackland’ refers to a name in his ancestry which he was interested in and researched – such as Egbert de Blackland Treby born Plymouth 1822 and Frederick de Blackland Treby, born Plymouth 1824); his address at this time was: Flat 10, 30, Gloucester Terrace, London, W2 3DA.

Treby’s early poems of the 1960’s show a ‘fist in the air’ defiance for the acceptance of homosexuality, such as his poem ‘The Pink Triangle’ which begins: ‘We came of noble stock, we should be proud: / Marlowe, Michelangelo, Whitman and Wilde’; and again in his 1968 poem, ‘We who burn’ which begins: ‘we who burn close concealed internal tapers, / whose lives slow-moulder in consuming fevers…’ and ends: ‘we rise at dusk from subterranean porches / and search Death’s mansions with our living torches, / hoping to glimpse again a young man’s face.’

In 1985 his verse cycle, ‘Woman with Camellias’ was performed at St James’s Church for the Piccadilly Festival.

As a poet, Treby mostly uses the traditional rhyme and metre and it would be easy to dismiss his work upon first glance, but take a deeper look and one can see that he is really a very clever poet; his themes are deep and quite intellectual, but made to look breezy in a way that Betjeman did with his poems. His first poetry collection, Warm Bodies, was published by his De Blackland Press, in 1988. A good example of his poetic style is the poem ‘Miz’ Pretty’ from the collection, which has thirteen rhyming couplets and is laced with Treby’s humorous touches with a dark twist at the end. The poem begins fairly innocuously and draws the reader in to want to know more about the woman who was ‘tired of lookin’ a mess /so she put on her cinnamon party dress’. She finds herself a dancing partner who was ‘six foot three and wide as a door’ but when it came to dancing he was as ‘dainty on the turns as a ten-wheel truck’; a charming sort of fellow who ‘smoked her smokes’ while she ‘paid for his beer’ until upon the scene comes a ‘spry little dark old dude’ who was ‘dapper and sharp with a gleam in his eye’ and a ‘waist no thicker’n a grasshopper’s thigh’. Without revealing too much about the poem it ends with Treby’s unique turn of events when the character of the ‘dark old dude’ is known. In fact, many of the poems in Warm Bodies are quite humorous and some with gay themes, such as ‘The Youth in the Park’ who is ‘half savage, half animal’ with ‘gypsy charm’ and ‘cleaning his nails with a knife’, which begins: ‘He’s in his twenties, slim / you’d pass him in the park / pause, turn to admire…’ In the poem, ‘The New Girl’ the imagery of the door seems to fascinate, as she ‘touched the handle of his door’ in the first verse and again in the third – ‘pressed once again upon his door / it would not move he’d turned the key’; in the next verse she ‘heard him lock the door’ and she ‘laid her cheek against the wall.’

Treby’s second poetry collection, Foreign Parts, was published the following year in 1989 and it has some very striking and tender pieces, such as ‘Transmitted in the Blood’ with its macabre subject of a dying lover, ‘his hair all damp with sweat’ as the poet, presumably, ‘twitched the curtain open / but all that I could see / was the dark moorland sleeping / and a single poplar tree.’ Treby used the imagery of the window in several poems, as here again in Transmitted in the Blood – ‘I looked to the window a second time / to the reddening sky in the east / but all I could see was the moor and the tree / nor snow, nor any beast’; and again:

 

I broke the pane in the window
Blood spurted down my arm
I heard a sigh from my lover
I turned to find him warm

 

The image of the window is also used in the poem ‘Birth Star’ in which a young man is in his room at the Grand Hotel du Boulevard and he looks out of the window to see the city with ‘its gardens and squares / see reflected in windows / moonscapes and salamanders / the sun’s setting fires…’ and later glimpses a ‘young man stand, at the mirror / shirtless, to comb his hair / no more to be there…’. The collection also has one of Treby’s most quoted poems, ‘Head of a Young Roman’ – in this remarkable little poem the poet encounters the sculptured bust of a Roman youth in the museum, and kisses the ‘cold white cheek’…’under the eyes of these his marble peers’. This short poem ends with ‘Love’s bold salute’ while the young Roman’s ‘envious friends stay grim’. (7)

Treby’s next volume, Woman with Camellias  was published in 1995; the title poem is a sequence of fifteen short numbered verses: i Nonant, ii girl in a blue barouche, iii the syndicate, iv sleeplessness, v a supper party, vi the silver bowl, vii Marie’s thoughts on clients, viii jasmine and quince tree, ix her philosophy, x in love, xi Chou, xii goat’s milk, xiii priestess of pentacles, xiv Clemence Prat’s supper-story, xv the undertaker’s boy. Upon reading these delightful verses I sensed the inspiration of the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova which was perhaps not intentional but nevertheless, there is a feminine sensitivity which is all the more beautiful in their jewel-like descriptive quality; for example, ‘sleeplessness’ begins: ‘on certain summer nights / when the air trembles with the scent of pine needles / and burning stars / I lie awake on my couch / the windows open wide to the garden / hear the secret whispering of lovers’. In ‘jasmine and quince tree’ the names of the flowers hold a kind of magic all of their own: ‘Love-in-a-mist, white / mullein and monk’s-hood / once I would gather them / flowers of my childhood / snowdrops and wintergreen / Solomon’s-seal / hemlock and heart’s-ease... comfrey, camellias, honeysuckle, wild arum, white clover’. The verse entitled ‘Priestess of Pentacles’ begins boldly: ‘I am Saturn’s daughter / sea-goat, ambassador / foursquare, ambitious… musk-hot, geniculate, extravagant, sensual / bind me by the tenth sign / flaxweed and indigo / bloodstone, black diamond / anion, cardinal melancholic, private / frail-boned the skeleton / lead line my coffin / earth my receptacle’.

In his next collection, Translations from the Human (1998) we find a familiar return to the image of the window in the poem ‘Ske le ton’ where there is ‘no noise, only the open O of your mouth / with dawn leaking blood at the window / as the fire, all ash, stuttered out’. In the poem ‘A Mother’s Warning’ the threat to the children is the ‘long lean man’ with ‘nostrils as red / as a wound still raw’ and eyes like ‘eggs / that have boiled too fast / and have split the shell’ and the child asks his mother: ‘O mother what is it / squirms so in his sack?’ Treby returns to the theme of childhood in the poem Telegraph Hill to recall the ‘doll that someone gave you, long years gone’ which was ‘complete with small tin bath and tiny sponge’.

The years 1998-2006 was an uncreative period in poetry for Treby, as he says himself in the preface to Blanche’s Last Fling (2006), it was because of ‘the collapse of a long-running relationship’ that he ‘no longer had the heart to write poetry…’ but it was a time when he immersed himself in the work of two poets, Katherine Harris Bradley (1846-1914) and her niece, Edith Emma Cooper (1862-1913) who both wrote under the pseudonym, Michael Field. Treby meticulously researched their works and produced his hugely informative Michael Field Catalogue: A Book of Lists, in 1998 and went on to become an authority on Bradley and Cooper. The following year, he published A Shorter Shirazad (1999) and continued with Music and Silence (2000) and Uncertain Rain (2002); these three volumes, all with an introduction and poems by Michael Field, ‘chosen, annotated but not edited by’ Treby were intended to be published under the combined title: ‘In the Leash to the Stranger: the unknown poetry of Michael field’. His last published work on Michael Field, Binary Star: Leaves from the Journal and Letters of Michael Field, 1846-1914, published in 2006, he dedicated to his mother, Phyllis, and considered it, ‘probably my only work of any consequence’.

Awareness of the Sea: Selected Poems, 1970-1995, published in 2000 included poems from Treby’s four collections: Warm Bodies, Foreign Parts, Woman with Camellias and Translations of the Blood, in a chronological sequence. He dedicated the volume to his father and the collection shows Treby’s tremendous strength as a poet with such delicate, beautiful touches as ‘If in my memory’ (p. 15) – ‘so if in dreams some distant midnight hour / my features, long forgot, should reappear / and you, grown old, should wonder whose they were; / turn in the bed to him you hold most dear, / bid me be gone, and I’ll return no more.’

There seems a feeling of finality about Treby’s collection, Blanche’s Last Fling (2006), a ‘winding down’ as if his powers as a poet were waning; he says in the preface that the ‘vital spark seems gone forever’ and that ‘there may be other original books to come… but any such, in the nature of things, can only be appendices.’ The collection contains Treby’s usual humorous pieces but also works which reflect upon childhood. The first section contains some interesting poems such as: ‘Broken Water’ (p. 15) in which the poet invokes the memory of his parents to ‘greet him again / brine-wet and naked’ and ‘salute him / as he passes into darkness.’; the very witty ‘The Pilcrow’ (p. 34) where ‘through a shady enjambment he goes / where arses and theses have sex in the bushes’, ‘… till he comes to a dwelling obscurely grand / the abode of a handsome young ampersand’, then finally the ‘pilcrow lies down with his love / and they have it away together till dawn / in purple orgasms of prose’, and ‘The Pubic Hair Collection’ (p. 35). Section II contains his travel poem ‘Riding the Dog’ about Treby’s journey across America in 2003 on the Greyhound Coaches, beginning on Monday 24^th July in San Francisco and travelling to destinations such as: Palm Springs, San Diego, New Mexico, Dallas, Nashville, Washington DC, Boston, New York etc. until eventually reaching London on day 50 (Monday 1^st September). In section III is a sonnet sequence of 14 numbered poems called ‘Night Stop’ which takes place at Alp Abbey. The sections are: I Frater, II Cubiculum, III Lucus, IV Balnearia, V Sacellum, VI Calefactory, VII Valetudinarium, VIII Bibliotheca, IX House of Novices, X Culina, XI Scriptorium, XII Apotheca, XIII The Abbot’s Lodging, and XIV Porticus.

In November 2006 Treby travelled to Chile and spent three weeks there and he also visited Easter Island where the poetic muse returned once more.

Ivor Treby was diagnosed with cancer in 2010 and he eventually succumbed and died two years later on Friday 28^th December 2012. His funeral, a Humanist ceremony, took place on Wednesday 13^th February 2013 in which his remains were cremated. Being a life-long lover of music, Treby donated £150,000 in his will to the Royal College of Music. His literary manuscripts were given to the University of Bristol’s Arts and Social Sciences Library, and the Bodleian Library’s Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts. The Literary Editor for the Treby Estate is Darren James Perry.

 

 

‘now for a while I remember so clearly
standing in the window this warm night
what each new life may bring
 is present and past understanding’

[Woman with Camellias]

 

 

In 2014, the acclaimed poet, John Dixon (8) edited Treby’s unpublished poems found after his death and published them in a volume: ‘Poems 2007-2012’ (London. Paradise Press) and the result is an outstanding and well-researched collection. The poems, numbered 399, ‘Rapa Nui’ to 466, ‘The Cuff Link’, (Treby was fastidious in numbering his poems and including notes to their compositions and publications) are a delight with Treby’s amusing touches. Dixon has done a fine job of the introduction (pp. 1-21) and following the poems (pp. 129-147), Appendix 1 includes an interview with Treby (pp. 149-156) while Appendix 2 provides the reader with ‘Tributes from Friends’ [Professor Donald West, Elsa Wallace and Mark Windisch, pp. 157-162]. Poems 2007-2012 is a remarkable work and John Dixon has added a splendid volume to the enchanting poetic legacy of Ivor C. Treby.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

 

Poem Cards. 10 short poems by Ivor C. Treby. Brilliance Books, Clerkenwell Green, London. 1984: ‘His Sake’, ‘Encounter’, ‘Head of a Young Roman’, ‘Too much light’, ‘Summer evening’, ‘Nottobekickedagainst’, ‘Fly Blown’, ‘142857’, ‘On Cir Cuit’.

Warm Bodies. Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. London. De Blackland Press. 1^st June 1988. pp. 80. The front cover depicts a black and white drawing of a young man leaning on a wooden table staring out of an open window towards a near shore with a wooden rowing boat in the foreground and cliffs in the distance beneath a bright moon. Title and author’s name at the bottom of the page in red lettering.

Foreign Parts. Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. London. De Blackland Press. 1^st April 1989. pp. 96. The front cover depicts a black and white drawing of a naked young man (upper half only) staring into a small circular mirror and fussing over his hair as he stands by an open shuttered window. His bed can be seen behind him and there is a sunflower in a jug upon the window ledge [see poem ‘Birth Star’]. The title and the author’s name appear at the bottom in light blue lettering.

Sugar and Snails: An Oscar’s Mixture. Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. Oscar’s Press. 20^th April 1990. pp. 36.

Woman with Camellias. Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. London. De Blackland Press. 6^th March 1995. pp. 96. Front cover depicts a black and white drawing of a young woman leaning on a balcony, staring outwards from her room while behind her is a figure of a man with the head of a skull in a dark suit and a top hat smoking a cigar. Title and author’s name appear at the bottom of the page in green lettering.

Translations from the Human. Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. London. De Blackland Press. 12^th October 1998. pp. 96. The front cover depicts a colour illustration of a young man dancing with a dinosaur while a small table in the right hand corner holds a pile of books, a tea cup and a smoking cigarette; several sheets of paper are hung about the room which has a carnival ‘curtained-tent’ flavour. The title appears at the top of the cover in black lettering and the author’s name at the bottom in black lettering.

The Michael Field Catalogue: A Book of Lists, researched and assembled by Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. London. De Blackland Press. 1^st August 1998. pp. 284, with illustrations.

A Shorter Shirazad: 101 Poems of Michael Field, chosen, annotated, but not edited by Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. Bury St Edmunds. De Blackland Press. 30^th August 1999. pp. 112. The front cover depicts a black and white photograph of a seated older woman, the poet, Katherine Harris Bradley (1846-1914) with her beloved Chow dog ’Whym Chow’ who died in 1906. The title appears at the top of the page in black lettering and the sub-heading beneath it in red lettering.

Awareness of the Sea: Selected Poems, 1970-1995. Ivor C. Treby. [the dedicated (p. 4) reads: ‘ In memory of better times of my dear father Frederick Herbert Treby, a master shipwright: of a once lively and bustling seaport, the old ‘three towns’ of Devonport, Stonehouse and Plymouth wilfully now lost forever: and of many brisk young sailors’] Paperback. Bury St Edmunds. De Blackland Press. 6^th May 2000. 150 copies. pp. 142. ‘The pieces assembled in this chronological sequence span my most active years of writing and wandering; the topographical markers, certainly of little interest to the casual reader, are a personal indulgence, an aide-memoire to events, people and places now fast fading into oblivion.’ (p. 13) [Typeset by De Blackland Press printed on White Woodfree Bookwave and bound in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk]

Music and Silence: The Gamut of Michael Field, chosen, annotated, but not edited by Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. Bury St Edmunds. De Blackland Press. 31^st December 2000. pp. 192.

Uncertain Rain: Sundry Spells of Michael Field, chosen, annotated, but not edited by Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. Bury St Edmunds. De Blackland Press. 19^th January 2003. pp. 240. The front cover depicts a black and white drawn illustration of four nude maidens with long flowing hair dancing and clasping each other. The title appears at the top of the cover in black lettering and beneath it is the sub-heading in blue-green lettering.

Blanche’s Last Fling. Ivor C. Treby. Paperback. London. De Blackland Press. 19^th January 2006. pp. 192. Also includes Treby’s prose piece ‘Riding the Dog’ which recalls his 2003 journey across America on the Greyhound Coaches. The front cover depicts a colour illustration of a great hall with a checker-board floor and a red-carpeted stairway. Various characters are assembled in the space in forms of claustrophobic intimacy observing each other or being observed secretly. A doll or a child sits with its back towards the viewer on a wooden chair in the foreground watching the strange antics. The title appears at the top pf the page in black lettering and the author’s name is at the bottom in black lettering.

Binary Star: Leaves from the Journal and Letters of Michael Field, 1846-1914. Ivor C. Treby. [Treby dedicated ‘this book, probably my only work of any consequence, to the memory of my dear mother, Phyllis Hayes Treby’] Paperback. Bury St Edmunds. De Blackland Press. 16^th October 2006. pp. 224. Treby says in the Introduction that this book ‘marks the culmination of some seventeen years’ work on Michael Field…’ The front cover depicts a black and white photograph of the two female poets Katherine Harris Bradley and her niece Edith Emma Cooper who together was known as ‘Michael Field’ and the title appears above it in black lettering with the sub-heading beneath it in green lettering.

Poems 2007-2012. Ivor C. Treby. Edited by John Dixon. 68 unpublished poems found after the poet’s death in 2012. London. Paradise Press. 2014. pp. xi, 173. Printed and bound in the UK by Berforts Information Press, King’s Lynn. Contains: Editor’s Preface and an Introduction by John Dixon with extensive notes to the poems; Appendix 1 is an interview with Treby given in Australia in 1990 and Appendix 2 has tributes from the poet’s friends. Front cover depicts a photograph of Treby (courtesy of Darren Perry) leaning against a railing beside a river wearing a T-shirt. The title, ‘Poems 2007-2012’ appears above Treby’s head in green lettering and below the photograph, also in green lettering, ‘Ivor C. Treby edited by John Dixon’.

 

 

A SELECTION OF POEMS BY IVOR TREBY IN PERIODICLES:

 

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 1979. ‘Bar Hustler’, ‘The Flaw’, ‘Triptych or Crane Dance’, p. 10.

Upfront. 12^th October 1979. ‘Rheinterrasse: Hotel Des Trois Rois’, ‘Small Ad’, ‘The Pink Triangle’, ‘Real Thing, Take Twelve’, p. 28.

Gap People’s Union News. November 1979. ‘Sealight’, ‘Rapt by the Timeless Moment’, ‘Five Empty Chairs’, ‘A Wide Shore’, ‘On the Train to Leipzig’, ‘Taveerne De Pul, Kerkstraat’ p. 26.

Straight Lines. 1980. ‘To the Romantic Composer’ p. 9.

Move. May 1980. ‘The Lemon Tree’, ‘A Wide Shore XVI and XVIII’ p. 10.

Move. July 1980. ‘A Riddle’, ‘The Castaway’ p. 16.

Angel Exhaust. Issue 3, 1980. ‘Babylon’ p. 42.

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 22^nd August 1980. ‘Foreign Station’, ‘An Der OSHSENGARTEN’, p. 7.

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 17^th October 1980. ‘An Aside’, ‘Two by Two’ p. 7.

Accord. October 1980. ‘Good Man!’, ‘A Wide Shore’, ‘Encounter’, ‘Seaward’, p. 15.

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 28^th November 1980. ‘The Bulgar’ p. 14.

Outposts. Issues 128-131, 1981. ‘Familiar Attitudes’ p. 15 [‘the high-flyer Icarus drops out when life becomes sunny’]

The Honest Ulsterman. Number 68, March-May 1981. ‘Not as we thought’, p. 30.

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 22^nd May 1981. ‘A Wide Shore’ p. 11.

The Honest Ulsterman. Number 69, June-October 1981. Two poems: ‘The Pilcrow’ p. 14, and ‘The New Girl’ p. 15.

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 9^th October 1981. ‘Sleeping Althanasius’ p. 11.

Kontiki. December 1981. ‘The Art of Conversation’, ‘A Wide Shore’, ‘A Magyar Salute’ p. 4.

Filter. 2^nd ed. 1982. ‘Bavarian Coach Trip’, p. 11.

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 15^th January 1982. ‘If Love Comes Knocking’ p. 15.

T.O.P.S. Jan-Feb 1982. ‘Our Eyes Are Mirrors’ p. 11.

Pink Triangle. February 1982. ‘If I Bought Her the Wool…?’ p. 11.

Mancunian Gay. May 1982. ‘If I bought Her the Wool…?’ p. 3.

The Literary Review, number 52. 1982. ‘A Visit with Salmonella’, ‘A Descent of Man’ p. 43.

The Anglo-Welsh Review. Issue 71-74, 1982. ‘The Big Positive’ p. 30, ‘Goodbye to Troy’ p. 31.

Aces. 1982. ‘Three Angels’ p. 2, ‘Winter Trees, Berlin’ p. 3.

Argo. Volume 4, 1982. ‘Miz’ Pretty’, p. 20.

Gay Scotland. May-June 1982. ‘Untitled’ p. 16.

The Sydney Star: Gay Community News. 18^th June 1982. ‘A Magyar Salute’ p. 9.

RFD. Autumn (Fall) 1982. ‘He Mocks at Love’ p. 20.

Him. October 1982. ‘The Youth in the Park’, p. 55, ‘On Cir Cuit’ p. 59

Him. November 1982. ‘An Der OCHSENGARTEN’ p. 55.

T.O.P.S. Nov-Dec 1982. ‘Since It Was Not So’ p. 7.

Identity. December 1982. ‘An Accident’, ‘Warm Bodies’, ‘Small Differences’, n. pag.

Footnotes 1. Winchester: School’s Poetry Association. 1983. ‘Miz’ Pretty’. p. 1.

Gay Scotland. July-Aug 1983. ‘Lust at X Thousand Feet’ p. 27.

Mancunian Gay. September 1983. ‘Loose in Amsterdam’, ‘Too Much Light’ p. 14.

Him. October 1983. ‘Rheinterrasse: Hotel des Trois Rois’ p. 35, ‘The Castaway’ p. 46.

Outrage. October 1983. ‘The Flaw’, ‘The Bulgar’ p. 28.

North. Issue 2, Spring 1984. Two poems: ‘le crime de Mathilde’ pp. 18-19, and ‘Birth Star’ p. 19.

Gay Star. Spring 1984. ‘Bathouse Trick’, n. pag.

Gay Scotland. Sept-Oct 1984. ‘Easy and Free’ p. 16.

Catch 22 [Australia]. October 1984. ‘Seaward’ p. 26.

Identity. December 1984. ‘Fulfilment Returning’, n. pag.

Kunapipi. Volume 7, 1985. ‘Eruption at Gjastykki ‘81’, ‘The Bezoar Stone’ and ‘Death of an Elderly Admirer’ p. 130.

The Belfast Review. Issue 11, June 1985. Poetry Supplement: ‘Woman with Camellias’ pp. 29-30 [i Nonant, ix her philosophy, xi Chou, xii goat’s milk, and xv the undertaker’s boy]

Rialto. Summer 1985. ‘Lost Bright Waters’ p. 5.

Gay Star. Summer 1985. ‘Chicago, Playa del Ingles’, ‘Thunder That Drums’, n. pag.

The James White Review: A Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly. Spring-Summer 1985. ‘Small Differences’ p. 8.

Rites. Dec-Jan 1985-86. ‘After Reading Cavafy in Morocco’ p. 18.

Salome: A Literary Dance Magazine. 1986. ‘Chicago, Playa Del Ingles’ p. 67.

Gown. 1986. ‘Something to Look Forward to’ p. 19.

RFD. Spring 1986. ‘Not in Tunis’ p. 46.

Out. May-June 1986. ‘Head of a Young Roman’ p. 32.

Patlar. June 1986. ‘Nottobekickedagainst’, ‘Against Nature’ p. 6.

RFD. Winter 1986-87. ‘At the Turn of the Year’ p. 53.

The Frogmore Papers. 16^th ed. 1987. ‘An Embalmed revolutionary’, p. 13.

Gay Scotland. Jan-Feb 1987. ‘Fond Expectations of the Early Morning Mail’ p. 33.

Other Poetry. Issue 20-24, 1987. ‘Birth Star’, p. 35.

Campaign [Australia]. March 1987. ‘Captain Glossop’s Prize’, ‘Kings Steam, Sydney’, ‘Paper Dolls’, ‘Outside the walls of Marrakech’, ‘Lemesos’, ‘Corroboree’, ‘Fond Expectations of the Early Morning Mail’, pp. 80-81.

The Honest Ulsterman. Number 83, Summer 1987. poems from ‘Twenty Folk-Poems of Candia’, pp. 3-4, including: i ‘I put down my hand carelessly / on this bank of wild flowers…’, ii ‘Manousos, you stink like my father’s goat’, iii ‘death rides up and down on his mule’, vi ‘the seeds of the carob tree I’ve heard / are used for measuring gold…’, x ‘I run down to the shore to greet you / with singing following your footsteps…’, xi ‘Espasia, only your son / follows your open coffin through the street’, xiv ‘they sit together in a tree-shade / I see you looking at her red lips’, xvi ‘all winter I have kept in the house’, xvii ‘there in the Volta Katarina you stole his love with your hot glances’, xix ‘that pink blossom marks my highest field’.

RFD. Summer 1987. ‘Due Milanesi’ p. 42.

The New Yorick. Summer 1988. ‘Sycorax at the Corner-Shop’ p. 15.

Rialto. Summer 1988. ‘Short Trip’ p. 15.

The New Yorick. Autumn 1988. ‘O Tempora! O Miaow!’ p. 12.

Bette Noire. 6^th ed. 1988. ‘How Often Love’ p. 168.

Purple Patch. 1989. ‘Strandman’ p. 6.

Bette Noire. 7^th ed. 1989. ‘Outlaw’ p. 68.

RFD. Spring 1989. ‘Corroboree’ p. 20.

Catch 22 [Australia]. March 1989. ‘Foreign Parts’ p. 15.

Pink Triangle. March-April 1989. ‘Torched’, ‘Lemesos’ p. 38.

The New Yorick. Spring 1989. ‘On a Road in Kelantan’, ‘Amherst 1886’ p. 7.

Gamut. Spring 1989. ‘A Phone Call’, ‘Outlaw’ pp. 25-27.

The New Yorick. Summer 1989. ‘Cyclamens’ pp. 3-4.

Muse. June 1989. ‘A Gap in Nature’ p. 16.

The Contemporary Review. Volume 254, 1989. ‘Strandman’, p. 18.

Kangaroo Eleven. 1989. ‘Sibyl with a Bread-Knife’ p. 19.

RFD. Autumn (Fall) 1989. ‘A Small Thing’ p. 22.

Bette Noire. 8^th-9^th ed. 1989-90. ‘Memories are made of this’ p. 280.

The Honest Ulsterman. Number 88, winter 1989-90. A short review of Warm Bodies with an excerpt from ‘Dracula Confides’, p. 70.

The Carrionflower Writ. 1990. ‘Fulfilment’ p. 3.

Psychopoetica. Ed. Geoff Lowe, University of Hull. ‘A Visit with Salmonella’ p. 31.

Changing Men. Winter 1990. ‘We Who Burn’ p. 25.

The Honest Ulsterman. Number 90, 1990.’Unnatural Instincts’, p. 27.

Connections. 1990. ‘Sudden Seizure at Borough Hall’ p. 6, ‘His Sake’ p. 27.

Poetry East. Issue 32, autumn 1991. ‘Woman with Camellias’ pp.137-146.

The James White Review: A Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly. Spring 1992. ‘Apollonicon’ p. 1.

The Argadian. England: Gothic Garden. 1992. ‘Pigeon Hitch a Ride’, p. 15.

The James White Review: A Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly. 1996. Review of Woman with Camellias by George Klawitter, p. 21.

Oxford Quarterly. Volume 2, issue 2, 1997. ‘Ske le ton’ p. 79.

Four W Eight [Australia]. 1997. ‘Fidelity’ p. 103.

Four W Eight [Australia]. 1998. ‘Voices of Candia’ p. 109.

New Contrast. Volume 26, 1998. ‘Porte del tormento’ p. 54.

Linq: Work From The Day Season. 2^nd ed., volume 25. 1998. ‘A Descent of Man’ p. 91.

Journal of the Open University Shakespeare Society, 9. 3. 1998. ‘Night Stop Scriptorium’ p. 19.

Mobius: Poetry Magazine. May 1998. ‘Enchanted Loom’ p. 9, ‘Before the Long Night’ p. 27.

The New Yorick. Autumn 1998. ‘The Saw’ p. 16.

New England Review. 1998. ‘So Often’, ‘Lycanthrope’ p. 15.

Achilles Heel. 1999. ‘All in a Deviant’s Day’ p. 17.

Riverrun. Summer 1999. ‘To a Lady Whose Mislaid Carbimazole Tablet Inadvertently Occaisioned the Premature Demise of a Cockroach’ p. 42.

Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. Oct-Nov 1999. ‘Nothing Clandestine’ p. 7.

Handel News. February 2002. ‘Porte Del Tormente’ p. 7.

Gay and Lesbian Review. Sept-Oct 2008. ‘Bar Gongora’ p. 17.

Chiron Review, number 86. 2009. ‘The Three Bears’ p. 7.

Eildon Tree, Summer 2011.’At No Time’, ‘Sunset Beach’ pp. 21-22.

Southlight 11. Spring 2012. ‘A Matter of Public Record’ p. 17.

 

Ivor Treby also had worked published in: Stride, The Gay Humanist, Image, Gala Review, Bay Windows, No Apologies, Crab-Creek Review, Minotaur, The Evergreen Chronicles, GPU News, Sepia, Poetry Nottingham, Vision On, Caprice, Sappho, The Gay Journal, Direction One, Magma, Labrys, Poesis, Southwest Review, 2Plus2, The Phoenix Review, Cumberland Poetry Review, The New Welsh Review, Imago, Coe Review, Cargo, Orbis, Limestone, Pivot, Other, Moonstone, Poet’s Market, Penine Platform, Poetry Review, Staple, Mister…

 

ANTHOLOGIES:

 

Not Love Alone: A Modern Gay Anthology. Martin Humphries. London. GMP Publishers. 1985. poems: ‘Image of violence’, pp. 116-117, and ‘Mosaic’, p. 118.

Worlds Apart, an Anthology Compiled by Chas White, Christine Shepherd and Christine E. Shepherd. London. Mary Glasgow Publications Ltd. 1986. ‘Miz’ Pretty’, p. 24.

Gay Love Poetry. Edited by Neil Powell. New York. Carroll & Graff Publishers Inc. 1997. section II Street Life: ‘Incident on the Central Line’ p. 61.

Coming Clean. Edited by John Dixon and Jeffrey Doorn. London. Paradise Press. 2014. 10 poems (from John Dixon’s ‘Poems 2007-2012’: ‘Not according to Spock’ pp. 107-108, ‘A Temporary Accommodation’ p. 109, ‘What they said about him’ p. 110, ‘Nympholepsy’ p. 111, ‘Open Horizon’ p. 112, ‘Requiescat in memory of Robert E. Wood’ pp. 112-113, ‘Roundel of Departure’ p. 113, Pachabel’s Collection’ pp. 114-115, ‘The Smaller Pleasures’ p. 115, ‘Happily Dying by Chocolate’ p. 116.

 

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. Frederick Herbert Treby’s father was Richard Pengelley Treby (1872-1954) who married Emily Florence Hyne (1878-1948) [daughter of Frederick Hyne, born 1838 and Mary Jane Bowden (1840-1907) who were married in Newton Abbot in 1861] in Torquay, Devon on 19^th November 1893. Richard was the son of James Painter Treby, born 1842 who married Mary Endacott, (also born 1842) at Newton Abbott in Devon in 1865 and had the following children (all born Newton Abbot): Eva Mary Treby (1868-1946), Mary Elizabeth Ann Treby, born 1868, [Richard Pengelly Treby 1872-1954], Josiah James Treby, born 29^th October 1874, married Emily Rosina Symons (b. 1876) in Torquay on 13^th June 1897 and died 4^th December 1944 [Josiah and Emily had the following children: Frederick Arthur Treby (1897-1973) served with Army Cyclist Corps, 19082, in the Great War and married Florence E M Pugh in Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales in 1922; William Robert Treby (20^th December 1901-1923), seamen in the Royal Navy, L11024, married Gladys May Hocking (1902-1980) in Newton Abbot in 1922 and died the following year on 20^th December aged 22; and Gladys Mary Treby (1907-1984), married Richard J Martin in Newton Abbot in 1930], Emily Jane Treby (1880-1956). Richard Pengelly Treby and Emily Florence Treby (married 1893) had the following children (all born Newton Abbot): Winifred Mary Treby, (1896-1951), she married James J Cooke in Newton Abbot in 1918; Harold Stanley Treby (1900-1966), he married Winifred H Quick in Newton Abbot in 1920; [Frederick Herbert Treby (1898-1976], James Pengelly Treby (1905-1995), he married Christine Mary Fleet in Newton Abbot in 1958; Dora May Treby (1907-1989), she married Richard W T Elliott in Newton Abbot in 1929; Ernest George Treby, (1909-1999) married Doris I L Perring in Newton Abbot in 1929 and Walter Frank Treby (1911-1988) married Daisy W Davies in Newton Abbot in 1937.
2. Phyllis Daisy Hayes, born 6^th March 1908 in Devonport and baptised on 23^rd March, (address 1908: 23, Clowance Street, Devonport) was the daughter of James Charles Hayes, born in Tiverton, Devon on 3^rd January 1878 and Louisa Minnie Shaw, born in Stoke Damerel, Devon in 1884; James, a stoker in the Royal Navy, and Louisa were married in the Church of St Aubyn, Devonport on 15^th June 1907. James (eldest child of James Hayes 1851-1937, flock maker in a flock mill like his father before him, and Rachel Searle (1857-1911) was 29 years old and a stoker onboard HMS Donegal, while Louisa (daughter of James Shaw, born 1855, a seamen in the Royal Navy, and Elizabeth Jane Holmes 1860-1937) was 23 and living at 45, Stephen’s Street. James died in Plymouth on 1^st November 1914 and buried there (Plymouth Naval Memorial). Louisa Minnie Hayes died in Plymouth aged 76 in 1960. [Siblings of James Hayes (1878-1914) were: John Hayes, born 1880, Frederick Hayes, born 1887, Minnie Hayes, born 1891, Harry Hayes, born 1895, Bert Hayes, born 1896 and Percy Hayes (1900-1976)]. Phyllis Daisy Hayes had a younger brother named Francis Charles Hayes, born in Stoke Damerel, Devon on 9^th February 1911; in 1931, Francis Charles Hayes, an electrician of Caroline Place, Stonehouse, Devon, and Edward James Quigley, aged 20, a lorry driver of Brownlow Street, Stonehouse, pleaded guilty to driving away a car without consent of the owner and were fined by the Magistrate [Navan and Military Record and Royal Dockyard and Gazette. Wednesday 2^nd September 1931, p. 6, and Weston Morning News, Tuesday 1^st September 1931, p. 6] He died in Plymouth in February 1998.
3. James Charles Hayes (1878-1914), father of Ivor’s mother, Phyllis Daisy Hayes. [Morning Post. Saturday 14^th November 1914. p. 10]
4. Other children, all born Stoke Damerel, born to James and Elizabeth Jane Shaw married in Devon in 1880: Florence Frances Shaw (1882-1957), [Louisa Minnie Shaw 1884-1960 and Francis James William Shaw 1889-1918], James Alfred Ernest Shaw (1892-1937) who married Miriam Treverton in Devonport in 1924 and Winifred Bessie Shaw, born 1898.
5. New pupils, Barrow Grammar School. Barrow News. Saturday 22^nd April 1944. p. 9.
6. see ‘Poems 2007-2012, Ivor Treby’, ed. John Dixon. Introduction. London. Paradise Press. 2014.
7. Head of a Young Roman, from Foreign Parts. The poem was written by Treby on 13^th October 1976 after visiting the Copenhagen Museum of classic sculpture.
8. John Dixon, an accomplished author and poet. His published works include: ‘Fiction in Libraries’, as editor, Library Association. 1986; ‘Seeking, Finding, Losing and Other Poems’ (first collection), Paradise Press. 2011; ‘The Carrier Bag and Other Stories’ (first collection of 9 short stories including the Bridport Prize-winning title story), Paradise Press. 2013; ‘Coming Clean’ (poetry anthology) as editor with Jeffrey Doorn, Paradise Press. 2014; ‘Poems 2007-2012, Ivor Treby’ as editor, Paradise Press. 2014; ‘A Boxful of Ideas’ (poetry and prose) as editor with Jeffrey Doorn, Paradise Press. 2016; ‘Michael Harth: Selected Stories’, as editor with Jeffrey Doorn, Paradise Press. 2019; ‘Michael Harth: Selected Lyrics’, as editor with Jeffrey Doorn, Paradise Press. 2022; ‘Whispering Campaigns and Other Stories’ (second collection of stories), Paradise Press. 2024; ‘Fancy That and Other Poems’ (second collection), Paradise Press. 2024. He has also written a performance piece: ‘Binkie and the Snowbird’ (a monologue to be performed with a Southern drawl) and had short stories appearing in: ‘People Your Mother Warned You About’ edited by G. Abel-Watters, Paradise Press. 2011; ‘The Best of Gazebo’, edited by Michael Harth, Paradise Press. 2012 and ‘Eros at Large – Tales of Desire’, edited by Michael Harth, Paradise Press. 2013; and seven poems included in ‘Oysters and Pearls’, edited by Jeffrey Doorn and Adrian Risdon, Paradise Press. 2010.