J. Norman Cameron (1905 – 1953) was a Scottish poet, who associated on Majorca with Robert Graves and Laura Riding; and later as a Fitzrovian with Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Grigson, Len Lye and many others. He mostly worked as an advertising copywriter (being responsible for one classic campaign, Horlicks for night starvation), and his total poetic output amounted to about 70 poems. He also translated Villon and Rimbaud.

He was born in Bombay, India, and sent to be brought up in Edinburgh. He was educated at boarding school in Nairn, at Fettes College, and at Oriel College, Oxford. His verse was published in Oxford Poetry from 1925 to 1928.

He was, it is now often said, a poetic disciple of Laura Riding, or mostly self-taught, rather than of his friend Robert Graves. He died of a brain haemorrhage.

Works

• The Winter House (1935)
• Work in Hand (1942) with Robert Graves and Alan Hodge , Hogarth Press
• Forgive Me, Sire (1950)
• Collected Poems 1905-1953 (1957) Hogarth Press
• Norman Cameron: Collected Poems and Selected Translations (1990) edited by Warren Hope and Jonathan Barker

Reference

• Norman Cameron: His Life, Work and Letters (2000) Warren Hope