Chris Preddle has retired to a windy shoulder of the Pennines in West Yorkshire. Born in London in 1943, he was educated in South Africa and at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, where he was taught by Peter Levi. He read Medieval and Modern Greek at the University of Oxford. He worked in public libraries in London, Elgin and Kendal, and as a librarian for two child care charities, Barnardo’s and Action for Children. He compiled a revised edition of the leading library classification of social welfare, the Bliss Bibliographic Classification (Class Q). He is married to Jacqui, and they have four grownup children between them and two grandchildren. His first collection was Bonobos (Newcastle upon Tyne: Biscuit Publishing, 2001). He is presently working on English versions of all Sappho’s poems and fragments.

Books by Chris Preddle:

Other poems on the web by Chris Preddle:
Two poems
from "Variations on Sappho 95"
Two poems
Two poems
"King Socrates"

About Cattle Console Him:

"The first thing you realise on reading Chris Preddle’s poetry is its author’s intelligence; the second is his technical skill – line-propelling rhymes and inventive forms gracefully achieved – then how enjoyably deployed these talents are for our benefit. A classical Muldoon or postmodernist Longley, only the names of the best contemporary poets come to mind when I try to describe him; study this wonderful collection yourself and see what I mean."
—Ian Duhig

"Accessible, erudite and technically assured, Chris Preddle emerges in this, his second collection, as a metaphysical poet advancing a long tradition. These are poems of admirable formal invention and lightness of touch, abounding in half-rhyme, homophone and musical variation. Whether meditating on a muddy Yorkshire field or a Greek sea, their themes resonate across a wide range of cultural reference, from Sappho and Boethius, classical and Christian, to the early 21st century. Rooted in the material world, particularly in the landscape around the Yorkshire village of Holme, where Preddle lives with his wife Jacqui, they momentarily illuminate the autobiographical, provisional and domestic, identifying within the particular situation an eternal predicament, and ultimately affirming the redemptive power of art and, above all, of love."
—Katrina Porteous

"Chris Preddle is a fresh inventor. He brings language together in new ways and in new forms. His sequences are full of surprises: a wonderful new presence."
—Michael Schmidt

"Chris Preddle lives in the village of Holme, in sight of the Pennines. Many of his poems imagine this place as Arcadia, an ideal region of rustic contentment, with his friends there playing Virgil’s shepherd poets. There are also uxorious poems for his lady Jacqueline, travel poems, others about nature, literature, history. These are philosophical poems, clever and learned, and they delight in wordplay."
—John Wakeman