Wilfrid Wilson Gibson is generally remembered today as a leader in the Georgian poetry movement, though much of his better verse was written after this group had receded in importance. He was not original or skillful in his prosody--Robert Frost recalled that Gibson admitted without much embarrassment to a group of Chicago professors in 1917 that he "didn't know one form of versification from another." Yet his verse has directness, simplicity, and a sharp sense of irony; it presents compelling stories in compact and dramatic form.

Gibson was born 2 October 1878 at Hexham, near Newcastle, in the extreme north of England, where he lived until 1912. He was privately educated and never attended college. Though he was always something of a poseur, he was essentially a mild and reclusive man, inspiring such descriptions as "lovable" from D.H. Lawrence and "simple and nice" from Rupert Brooke.

Gibson's early poetry is highly...