John Gray (poet) French, German, Latin, music and art. In 1882 he passed the Civil Service exams and, five years later, the University of London matriculation exams. He joined the Foreign Office where he became a librarian. Gray is best known today as an aesthetic poet of the 1890s and as a friend of Ernest Dowson, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde. He was also a talented translator, bringing works by the French Symbolists Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Jules Laforgue and Arthur Rimbaud into English, often for the first time. He is purported to be the inspiration behind the title character in Wilde's "The
If the Poet also performed at festivals including Word On The Street and Words Aloud, as well as locally in southern Ontario. He currently resides in Toronto and Bracebridge, Ontario. He was the focus of the 2015 CBC Television documentary "IF the Poet". French lives with Lise St-Arnaud in Toronto. If the Poet Ian French is a Canadian Spoken Word Artist and poet that goes by the handle IF THE POET, or, IF. Among his championships he was Canadian champion in 2014, and placed third in the 2015 world championship. French was the focus of the 2015 documentary film "IF the Poet". After