I should explain why I’ve started using my middle name for the author credit on Sea Level Rising. A lot of people have recently congratulated me on my “new book” about George Herbert, and I’ve had to explain that it’s actually by another John Drury, who happens to be the chaplain of All Souls College at Oxford University. His book is entitled Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (University of Chicago Press, 2014).

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But I’ve known about him for a long time, and I’ve used my full name, John Philip Drury, on the copyrights of my previous books of poems (The Disappearing Town, Burning the Aspern Papers, and The Refugee Camp), as well as The Poetry Dictionary. But enough is enough. It’s time to cry “uncle” (or maybe “long-lost cousin”) to the Very Reverend Doctor John Drury.

By the way, the short bio note on the copyright page of Music at Midnight cites two other books by the other John Drury, and one of them is my own Creating Poetry.