Love....And Other Poems

From island to island ... Born in England and brought up on thesouth coast. Hilary Seymour-Cole Kinghas never forgotten her English roots. Shewas educated there and in London, whereshe worked in advertising. She decidedto emigrate to the United States in 1957in order to study American advertisingmethods, and this led to her marriageto an American who had been a Rhodesscholar at Oxford. Hilary had her fi rst poem Spitfi res in theSun published at the age of 16 when atboarding school, and she continued towrite poetry and short stories. She became an advertising copywriter, an editor of several womens magazines inNew York, and then founded and ran her own Public Relations and Marketingagency in Manhattan for over 40 years. Hilary has continued to write throughoutthe years - whether living in New York or on Shelter Island, where she acquired asummer house for her children, Alexandra, Edward and Vanessa in the late 70s. Then, in the 80s, she returned to her fi rst love, Italy, and acquired a 200 year oldruin in Umbria, in a hamlet called Morra, on the Tuscany border. Originally atobacco drying tower, this took nearly four years of money, Italian permits, Italianworkmen, and so on to restore the building and create a casa di campagna, a littlecountry house. This house was the joy of her life for many years and she visited it whenever possible. Now, at 82, Hilary has retired to Shelter Island where she lives permanently. She has completed her fi rst book of poems and is working on her memoirs of achildhood in England during World War II. Her greatest joy today is when hergrandchildren, Duncan, Fiona and Liam, visit her. As she says, Shelter Island isso like England, where you are surrounded by the beauty, peace and quiet of thecountryside and the sea.