Explore Poets
Each poet we record has their own full page in the Archive. Here we can tell you about their writing life, biographies, histories, awards and more...
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519 poets
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Hannah Sullivan
B. 1979
We are on adding Hannah Sullivan, whose collection, Three Poems (Faber, 2018), won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2018, to The Poetry Archive. In the meantime you can find more information about Hannah on the T. S. Eliot website…
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John Ashbery
B. 1927 D. 2017
For me, poetry is very much the time that it takes to unroll, the way music does...it's not a static, contemplatable thing like a painting or a piece of sculpture. - John Ashbery
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Margaret Atwood
B. 1939
With a lyric poem, you look, and meditate, and put the rock back. With fiction you poke things with a stick to see what will happen. - Margaret Atwood
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Patience Agbabi
B. 1965
I write because my ink must flow like blood. The written must be spoken. Patience Agbabi
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Pam Ayres
B. 1947
Forget the corny comedian: Pam Ayres is a proper poet, whose wistful, funny, and perceptive verse captures both the joy and unfairness of life. - Sunday Times
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Fergus Allen
B. 1921 D. 2017
Allen writes poetry that is limpid, very subtle and marvellously wise. - William Boyd
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Matthew Arnold
B. 1822 D. 1888
I might have known, / What far too soon, alas! I learn'd / The heart can bind itself alone, / And faith may oft be unreturn'd.' Matthew Arnold, 'Isolation: To Marguerite'
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Moniza Alvi
B. 1954
'here I am, on the edge of animation, / a dream, a dance, a fantastic construction'. Moniza Alvi