Numbers was a literary magazine published twice a year in Cambridge, England, between 1986 and 1990. Six issues of the magazine appeared, of which the last was a double issue to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of the American poet and novelist Janet Lewis

Janet Lewis

Janet Loxley Lewis was an American novelist and poet.-Biography:Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she was a member of a literary circle that included Glenway Wescott, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and her future husband Yvor Winters...

. Issue 4 was a celebration of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...

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Each issue contained an editorial, poems, translations and prose by poets.

Numbers was founded and edited by John Alexander, Alison Rimmer, Peter Robinson

Peter Robinson (poet)

Peter Robinson is a British poet born in Salford, Lancashire.-Life and career:...

 and Clive Wilmer

Clive Wilmer

Clive Wilmer is a British poet, who has published eight volumes of poetry. Wilmer was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire and attended Emanuel School and King's College, Cambridge. Wilmer argues that religion is fundamental to what he writes, yet he does not associate himself with a parochial view of the...

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The magazine emerged from the editors' involvement with the 1977 to 1985 Cambridge Poetry Festival

Cambridge Poetry Festival

The Cambridge Poetry Festival was an international biennale for poetry held in Cambridge, England, between 1975–1985. The festival was founded in an attempt to combine as many aspects as possible of this form of art...

s, and with the exhibition Pound's Artists

Pound's Artists

Pound's Artists: Ezra Pound and the Visual Arts in London, Paris and Italy was an exhibition held in 1985 to mark the centenary of Ezra Pound's birth....

 at Kettle's Yard

Kettle's Yard

Kettle's Yard is an art gallery and house in Cambridge, England.- History and overview :Kettle's Yard was originally the Cambridge home of Jim Ede and his wife Helen. Moving to Cambridge in 1956, they converted four small cottages into one idiosyncratic house and a place to display Ede's collection...

 and the Tate Gallery

Tate Gallery

The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...

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Contributors

Notable contributors to the magazine included:

John Ash John Ash John Ash may refer to:* John Ash , British physician.* John Ash , lexicographer and minister* John Ash , Member of the Legislative Assembly for Comox riding in British Columbia, Canada... John Ashbery John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial... Yves Bonnefoy Yves Bonnefoy Yves Bonnefoy is a French poet and essayist. Bonnefoy was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, the son of a railroad worker and a teacher.... Edgar Bowers Edgar Bowers Edgar Bowers was an American poet who won the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1989.Bowers was born in Rome, Georgia in 1924. During World War II he joined the military and served in Counter-intelligence against Germany... Alison Brackenbury Alison Brackenbury -Life:She studied at Oxford. She now lives in Gloucestershire.Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Stand,-Works:* * * -Reviews:Singing in the Dark is Alison Brackenbury's seventh collection of poetry... Donald Davie Donald Davie Donald Alfred Davie was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes.-Biography:... Douglas Dunn Douglas Dunn Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He currently lives in Scotland.-Background:Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. He was educated at the Scottish School of Librarianship, and worked as a librarian before he started his studies in Hull... Lauris Edmond Lauris Edmond Lauris Dorothy Edmond was a New Zealand poet and writer. Born in Dannevirke, Hawke's Bay, she survived the 1931 Napier earthquake as a child. Trained as a teacher, Edmond raised a family before publishing the poetry she had privately written throughout her life... U. A. Fanthorpe U. A. Fanthorpe Ursula Askham Fanthorpe, CBE, FRSL was an English poet. She published as UA Fanthorpe.-Early life:She was educated in Surrey and at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she received a first-class degree in English language and literature, and subsequently taught English at Cheltenham Ladies' College... Elaine Feinstein Elaine Feinstein Elaine Feinstein is a poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator.-Biography:... Roy Fisher Roy Fisher Roy Fisher is a British poet and jazz pianist. He was one of the first British writers to absorb the poetics of William Carlos Williams and the Black Mountain poets into the British poetic tradition. Fisher was a key precursor of the British Poetry Revival.Fisher was born in Handsworth, Birmingham... Franco Fortini Adèle Geras Adèle Geras Adèle Geras Adèle Geras Adèle Geras (born 1944, Jerusalem, is an English writer for young children, teens and adults. She has written more than 74 books, that have either been published or are in waiting... György Gömöri Thom Gunn Thom Gunn Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style... Rachel Hadas Rachel Hadas Rachel Hadas is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is Classics: Essays , and her most recent poetry collection is The Ache of Appetite . Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants, the O.B... Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes... Attila József Attila József Attila József was one of the most important and well-known Hungarian poets of the 20th century.-Biography:The son of Áron József, a soap factory worker of Romanian origin from Bánát, and Hungarian peasant girl Borbála Pőcze, he was born in Ferencváros, a poor district of Budapest. He had two elder... August Kleinzahler August Kleinzahler -Life and career:Until he was 11, he went to school in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where he grew up. He then commuted to the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, graduating in 1967. He wrote poetry from this time, inspired by Keats and Kenneth Rexroth translations, among other works... Janet Lewis Janet Lewis Janet Loxley Lewis was an American novelist and poet.-Biography:Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she was a member of a literary circle that included Glenway Wescott, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and her future husband Yvor Winters... Grevel Lindop Grevel Lindop Grevel Lindop is an English poet, academic and literary critic.-Life:Lindop was born in Liverpool and studied at Wadham College, Oxford, where he read English. After two years of postgraduate research at Wadham and Wolfson Colleges, Oxford, he moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, where he... Michael Longley Michael Longley Michael Longley, CBE is a Northern Irish poet from Belfast.-Life and career:Longley was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and subsequently read Classics at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited Icarus... Bill Manhire Bill Manhire William "Bill" Manhire, CNZM is an award-winning New Zealand poet, short story writer, and professor, New Zealand's inaugural Poet Laureate.-Biography:...

E. A. Markham E. A. Markham Edward Archie Markham FRSL was a poet and writer, born in Harris, Montserrat, and mainly resident in the United Kingdom from 1956. Known for poetry in both "nation-language" and standard English, for short stories and a comic novel, he sometimes used the pseudonym Paul St. Vincent and other... Medbh McGuckian Medbh McGuckian Medbh McGuckian is a poet from Northern Ireland.-Biography:She was born the third of six children as Maeve McCaughan to Hugh and Margaret McCaughan in North Belfast. Her father was a school headmaster and her mother an influential art and music enthusiast... Jamie McKendrick Jamie McKendrick -Poetry:McKendrick has published five collections of poetry.He is also the editor of The Faber Book of 20th-Century Italian Poems .-Awards:... Matthew Mead Matthew Mead Matthew Mead is an English poet. He edited the magazine Satis and now lives in Germany. A selection of his poems appears in Penguin Modern Poets 16, together with Harry Guest and Jack Beeching.... Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen was an award-winning Portuguese poet and writer.Sophia, as she is often referred to in Portugal, was born in Porto to a wealthy aristocratic family. She inherited the surname 'Andresen' from her paternal grandfather, a Danish merchant... Christopher Middleton Christopher Middleton Christopher Middleton may refer to:*Christopher Middleton , English translator and poet*Christopher Middleton , British poet*Christopher Middleton , Royal Navy officer and navigator... Nicholas Moore Nicholas Moore Nicholas Moore was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, who later dropped out of the literary world.Moore was born in Cambridge, England; his father was the philosopher G. E. Moore... Ruth Padel Ruth Padel Ruth Sophia Padel is a British poet, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Zoological Society of London. She also writes non-fiction and more recently fiction, broadcasts on wildlife, poetry and literature for BBC Radio 3 and 4, and is Writer in Residence at The Environment Institute,... György Petri György Petri György Petri was a Hungarian poet.-Childhood and youth:He was born in 1943 to a multi-ethnic Jewish family in Budapest. After his father's death he was raised by his mother, grandparents and aunts... Peter Riley Peter Riley Peter Riley is a contemporary English poet, essayist, and editor. Riley is known as a Cambridge poet, part of the group vaguely associated with J. H. Prynne which today is acknowledged as an important epicenter of innovative poetry in the United Kingdom. Riley was an editor and major contributor... Stephen Romer Stephen Romer Stephen Romer is an English poet, academic and literary critic. He was born in Hertfordshire in 1957 and educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Since 1981 he has lived in France, where he is Maître de Conferences in the English department of Tours University. He has been three times Visiting... E. J. Scovell E. J. Scovell Edith Joy Scovell was an English poet. She was born in Sheffield, and studied in Westmorland and at Somerville College, Oxford. She married the ecologist Charles Sutherland Elton in 1937. She also translated work of Giovanni Pascoli... Vittorio Sereni Vittorio Sereni Vittorio Sereni was an Italian poet, author, editor and translator of Jewish heritage. His poetry frequently addressed the themes of 20th century Italian history, such as Fascism, Italy's military defeat in World War II, and its postwar resurgence.Born at Luino, Sereni graduated from the... Vikram Seth Vikram Seth Vikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta... Ken Smith Ken Smith (poet) Ken Smith was a British poet.-Life:He was son of a farm labourer, and he had an itinerant childhood... Elizabeth Smither Elizabeth Smither Elizabeth Smither MNZM is a New Zealand poet and writer.She worked as a librarian.-Awards:* 2002 Te Mata Poet Laureate.* 2000 Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry* 2008 Prime Minister's Award for poetry.... Timothy Steele Timothy Steele Timothy Steele is an American poet and academic. Born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1948, he is a professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles. Some of Steele's early verse appeared in X. J. Kennedy's Counter/Measures in the early seventies. He went on to become a figure in the... Grete Tartler Charles Tomlinson Charles Tomlinson Alfred Charles Tomlinson, CBE is a British poet and translator, and also an academic and artist. He was born and raised in Penkhull in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.-Life:... John Tranter John Tranter John Ernest Tranter is an Australian poet, publisher and editor. He has a long list of achievements in writing, publishing and broadcasting... Gael Turnbull Gael Turnbull Gael Turnbull was a Scottish poet who was an important precursor of the British Poetry Revival.Turnbull was born in Edinburgh and grew up in the North of England and in Canada... Marguerite Yourcenar Marguerite Yourcenar Marguerite Yourcenar was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist. Winner of the Prix Femina and the Erasmus Prize, she was the first woman elected to the Académie française, in 1980, and the seventeenth person to occupy Seat 3.-Biography:Yourcenar was born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie...