Jade Cuttle graduated from Cambridge University with First-Class Honours in Modern and Medieval Languages and Literature, and undertook an MA in Poetry at the University of East Anglia. A poet and plant-whisperer, Jade has been commissioned to write for BBC…

Sharon Olds was born in San Francisco in 1942. She studied at Stanford University and received her PhD from Columbia University, where she wrote a thesis on Ralph Waldo Emerson. She has published twelve books of poems, including Satan Says (1980), The Father (1992), Stag’s Leap (2012), Odes (2016)…

Valerie Gillies’ poems are of a startling clarity. The precision of thought and image that coalesce in her vivid and occasionally microscopic descriptions might prompt a line of comparison between her work and that of the earlier, American poet, Elizabeth…

David Morley is an ecologist, poet, editor and teacher. Emerging with Releasing Stone (Arc, 1989), he has since published five collections with Carcanet, the most recent, The Invisible Gift: Selected Poems (2015), won the 2015 Ted Hughes Award; his previous collection, The…

In its insistent rhythms and vivid parsing of postcolonial histories, Kamau Brathwaite’s poetry is among the most significant to emerge from the West Indies in the last century. Born in Barbados in 1930, Brathwaite won a scholarship to study at…

An internationally exhibiting artist as well as a poet, Heather Phillipson received an Eric Gregory Award in 2008 and has since published three books of poetry: a pamphlet with Faber & Faber in 2009 (part of the Faber New Poets…

Malika Ndlovu is a South African poet who has performed her work across the globe. With a background in both theatre and arts management Ndlovu is a prolific creative facilitator, working with numerous visual artists, culture organizations, heritage institutions and…

Patience Agbabi is a poet much celebrated for paying equal homage to literature and performance. Born in London to Nigerian parents and fostered in a white English family in North Wales, her work moves fluidly and nimbly between cultures, dialects, voices; between page…

Burns started life as a ploughman in Scotland but is now one of the world’s most celebrated poets. Every January, his life is remembered with whisky, haggis, singing and dancing on Burns Night. Perhaps as a distraction from the hard…

Christopher Smart was born in 1722 and is best remembered for his religious poems A Song to David and Jubilate Agno, both of which were written during his time at St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics, London. He believed that God…

Baillie was a Scottish playwright, critic and poet who lived most of her life in Hampstead, where she was the centre of a rich literary culture. Born into a family of physicians and the daughter of a university professor, Baillie…