John M. Ridland

John Ridland was born in London and grew up in California. He earned his PhD from Claremont Graduate School and published numerous books and chapbooks, including Ode on Violence (1969), In the Shadowless Light (1978), Elegy for My Aunt (1982), Palms: Six ballads (1993), A Brahms Card Ballad (2007), Happy in an Ordinary Thing (2013), A. Lincolniad: An epic poem honoring the memory of President Abraham Lincoln (2014), Epitome and Epiphany (2017), and Mountain Music (2018), among many others. With his wife Muriel he wrote And Say What He Is: The Life of a Special Child (1975).
 
Ridland was also a translator and published translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as single volumes of the Hungarian poets Sándor Márai and Miklós Radnóti. Ridland published a verse translation of the Hungarian folk epic John the Valiant (Corvina Press, Budapest, 1999). In 2010, Ridland was recognized with the Balassi Sword Award for his translations of Hungarian literature. In 2017 he was inducted as “Mid-Coast Literary Treasure.”
 
Ridland received a gold medal from the Arpad Society of Cleveland Ohio. He taught for over 40 years at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He died in early 2020.