Jennings, Elizabeth Joan (1926– )

English poet. Her poems are concerned with personal subjects, written in a plain, traditional style. Particularly well known are those which describe her experiences of a nervous breakdown, while others reflect her religious beliefs. Her books include A Way of Looking (1955; Somerset Maugham award), Song for a Birth or a Death (1961), Recoveries (1961), and Collected Poems (1967). Her translation of Michelangelo's Sonnets was published in 1961, and she contributed to the New Statesman and the New Yorker publications.

Jennings was born in Oxford and educated at St Anne's College, Oxford. She worked as a library assistant and publisher's reader, but later devoted herself entirely to writing.