John Powell Ward (born 1937) is an English poet and academic. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in the College of Arts and Humanities at Swansea University.^[1]

John Powell Ward was born in Felixstowe, Suffolk.^[2] He studied at the University of Toronto and the University of Cambridge before embarking on an academic career in Swansea. Between 1977 and 1984, he was a regular presenter of the BBC radio programme Poetry Now, and from 1975 to 1980 he edited Poetry Wales.^[3] In 2012, an exhibition of his "Poetry or Type" project was on view at the Hay-on-Wye Poetry Jamboree.^[4][5]

He is the father of the actor Tom Ward.

Works

Poetry

• The Other Man (Christopher Davies, 1969)
• To Get Clear (Poetry Wales Press, 1981)
• The Clearing (Poetry Wales Press, 1984)
• A Certain Marvellous Thing (Seren, 1993)
• Genesis (Seren, 1997)
• Late Thoughts in March (Seren, 1999)
• Selected and New Poems (Seren, 2004)
• The Last Green Year (Cinnamon Press, 2008)
• Instead Of Goodbye (Cinnamon Press, 2017)
• Religious Poems, Maybe (Cinnamon Press 2020)

Criticism

• Social Reality for the Adolescent Girl (University of Wales, Swansea 1976)
• Poetry and the Sociological Idea (Harvester Press, 1981)
• Wordsworth's Language of Men (Harvester Press, 1984)
• Raymond Williams (University of Wales Press, 1984)
• The English Line (Macmillan, 1991)
• As You Like It (Harvester: Shakespeare New Readings, 1992)
• Thomas Hardy's Poetry (Open University Guides, 1993)
• The Poetry of R. S. Thomas (Seren Books: Poetry Wales Press, 1987)
• The Spell of the Song: Letters, Meaning, and English Poetry (Fairleigh-Dickinson University Press USA, 2004)

Awards

• Poetry and the Sociological Idea, Welsh Arts Council Award for literary criticism, 1981
• The Clearing, Welsh Arts Council Award for poetry, 1984
• The Spell of the Song, Outstanding Academic Title Citation, American Libraries Association, 2004