Tributes paid to poet and playwright Tony Harrison

Tony Harrison, who died on Friday, was described as a "poet of Leeds - moulded by the city"

Tributes have been paid to the Yorkshire poet and playwright Tony Harrison, who has died aged 88.

Harrison, who was born in Beeston, Leeds, wrote for the National Theatre in London, the New York Metropolitan Opera, and for the BBC and Channel 4.

He was a pupil at Leeds Grammar School and went on to study at the University of Leeds, which now holds his archive.

Sarah Prescott, a literary archivist at the university, said he was a "public poet, writing in his own working class, Yorkshire voice".

Harrison worked as an English lecturer in Nigeria from 1962-1966 before teaching in Czechoslovakia and returning to England in 1967.

His first book of poetry, The Loiners, was published in 1970.

Plays he wrote for the National Theatre included his modern English adaptation of Molière's The Misanthrope in 1973 and Phaedra Britannica in 1975.

His television work helped him reach a wider audience, with his 1987 "film poem", V, sparking an outcry following its Channel 4 airing due to its use of expletives.

The reaction was so strong that a group of MPs called for a debate about it in the House of Commons and it was criticised by conservative activist Mary Whitehouse.

Publishing house Bloodaxe Books said it was "immensely saddened" by the news of Harrison's death

"He was a poet of Leeds – moulded by the city – and his time at the university was central to his development," Ms Prescott said.

"He studied for a PhD here which he did not complete, and he was finally awarded an honorary doctorate in 2004."

V was inspired by a visit to Holbeck Cemetery in Beeston, where he went to tend to his parents' graves and saw vandalised headstones.

It imagines a conversation between the poet and the person who defaced the graves and features the obscenities and racist slurs used in the graffiti.

It was first published by Bloodaxe Books, which said it was "immensely saddened" by the news of his death on Friday.

The publishing house said he "had been unwell for some years".

Later in Harrison's career, he covered the Bosnian War as a poet journalist for the Guardian.

He received the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2015, recognising a lifetime's achievement to poetry, theatre and film.

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