John Heath-Stubbs (1918 – 2006) recalled how the teacher at his tiny village school read her pupils Our Island Story, sparking in him the lifelong fascination with history that informed his poetic career. He completed his education at Worcester College…

Christopher Logue (1926 – 2011) spent over forty years working on his contemporary version of Homer’s Iliad. Begun in 1959 the project expanded into five full-length collections, known collectively as War Music. Born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, Logue was part of…

Penelope Shuttle (b. 1947) has made her home in Cornwall since 1970 and the county’s mercurial weather and rich history are continuing sources of inspiration. So too is the personal and artistic union Shuttle shared with her husband, the poet…

Patricia Beer (1924-1999) was born in Exmouth, Devon, into a Plymouth Brethren family, a childhood she recalls vividly in her autobiography Mrs Beer’s House. Educated at Exmouth Grammar School, Exeter University and Oxford, she lived in Italy lecturing in English…

John Betjeman (1906-1984) achieved huge success during his lifetime and continues to retain his ‘National Treasure’ status more than twenty years after his death. His gift for comic writing, his dazzling technical abilities and his combination of eccentricity and Englishness…

George Mackay Brown (1921-1996) was born in the remote Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland and apart from two periods of education at Newbattle Abbey College and the University of Edinburgh, he lived there all his life. The…

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) is cherished as the pivotal figure between the 50s Beat Generation and the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s. He was born in Newark, New Jersey the son of a high school teacher and poet, Louis Ginsberg, and…

Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was the first black writer in America to earn his living from writing. Born in Joplin, Missouri, he had a migratory childhood following his parents’ separation, spending time in the American Mid-West and Mexico. He attended Columbia…

Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001) was born in Boston, Lincolnshire but moved to Oxford at the age of six where she lived for the rest of her life. She studied at St. Anne’s College, Oxford and worked in advertising, at the City…

Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978) remains a controversial and influential figure. Born a postman’s son in Langholm Dumfriesshire, he trained to be a school teacher in Edinburgh, then worked on local newspapers in Scotland and South Wales before enlisting in the Royal…

Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) was a friend and contemporary of W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender at Oxford and his poetry has often been linked to their own. Whilst sharing certain characteristics with them, including a sharp political awareness, in recent…

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) was born into a wealthy Anglo-Jewish family and his early life was comfortable and leisured, dominated by sports and country pursuits. However, his poetic leanings were present even during this carefree period: the young Siegfried loved books…

Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) was born into an aristocratic family and, along with her brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell, had a significant impact on the artistic life of the 20s. She encountered the work of the French symbolists, Rimbaud in particular, early…

Elaine Feinstein (b.1930 – d.2019) was from Bootle, Lancashire and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She worked as an editor, a university lecturer and a journalist. From 1976 she lived on her writing. Feinstein’s early poetry bears the influence…

David Gascoyne (1916-2001) was born in Harrow, the son of a bank manager, and educated at Salisbury Cathedral School. However, it didn’t take the young Gascoyne long to leave this conservative background behind, publishing his first poetry collection at the…

Peter Goldsworthy (b. 1951) has been described as “one of the most skilled and satisfying poets in Australia,” (A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry). Born in Minlaton, S. Australia he grew up in country towns before studying medicine at…

Michael Hamburger (1924 – 2007) was born into a German family of Jewish descent in Berlin, emigrating with them to England in 1933. He attended Westminster School and read Modern Languages at Christ Church, Oxford where his contemporaries included Philip…

Kathleen Jamie spent much of her early poetic career answering the question posed by the disapproving elders in her famous poem ‘The Queen of Sheba’: “whae do you think y’ur?” Across a rich and varied body of writing, Jamie has…