Born in Shildon, County Durham on 3 December 1944, Craig Anthony Raine grew up in a working-class home where, as he writes in “A Silver Plate”, the autobiographical prose sequence in his third collection
Rich(1984), the most important book he owned was a comic book version of Robert Louis Stevenson's
Kidnappedthat Raine's mother had sewn together (
Rich60-61). The attention to perception that marks much of Raine's poetry, especially his early poems which helped establish the “Martian school” of poetry, owes something perhaps to this seminal influence. Frequently examining everyday domestic or other local settings, Raine's speakers discover wonder in the ordinary. As the author of seven collections of poetry, including his
Collected Poems, 1978-1999and his verse novel,
History:1985 words
Citation: Hayes, M. Hunter. "Craig Raine". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 November 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5523, accessed 24 November 2024.]