Enright, D. J.

Enright, D. J., ( Dennis Joseph Enright) (1920–2002), poet, born in Leamington and educated at Downing College, Cambridge. He taught English literature for 25 years, mainly in the East; many of his poems are set in Japan, Egypt, Singapore, and Germany, and concern cultural differences and misunderstandings. Among his collections of verse are The Laughing Hyena and Other Poems (1953), Bread rather than Blossoms (1956), Addictions (1962), Sad Ires (1975), A Faust Book (1979), Under the Circumstances (1991), Old Men and Comets (1993), and By-blows: Uncollected Poems (1996); Collected Poems, 1948–1988 appeared in 1988.

Enright's work is predominantly detached and ironic in tone and wide-ranging in its subject matter. His prose works include The World of Dew: Aspects of Living in Japan (1955); Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor (1969); works of criticism, including Man is an Onion (1972, reviews and essays); and Signs and Wonders (2001, essays). He published Poets of the 1950s (1955, an anthology); and edited The Oxford Book of Death (1983), The Oxford Book of Contemporary Verse 1945–1980 (1980), and The Oxford Book of the Supernatural (1994). Enright also wrote several books for children.