Marilyn Hacker (b. 1942) is a poet whose work combines the political and the personal, the traditional and the radical, to startling effect. She is a New Yorker, born in the Bronx to Jewish parents who were the first in…

Tony Harrison is Britain’s principal film and theatre poet and has famously said “Poetry is all I write, whether for books, or readings, or for the National Theatre, or for the opera house and concert hall, or even for TV.”…

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) is one of the most successful children’s writers in the world: around thirty million of his books have been sold in the U.K. alone. Children love his poems and stories because he writes from their point of…

Thom Gunn (1929-2004) was a poet whose work thrives on contrast and contradiction: English tradition and American idiom; strict form and free verse; intellectual discipline and physical hedonism are all held in balance in his risk-taking poetry. Gunn was born…

Don Paterson (b. 1963) is an accomplished jazz musician as well as a poet which might partially account for the complex harmonies of his work. Born in Dundee, he left school to pursue a career in music, moving to London…

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…

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…

Fred D’Aguiar (b. 1960) draws on his dual Guyanese/British heritage throughout his writing which incorporates poetry, novels and plays. Although born in London, he lived in Guyana until he was twelve before returning to England where the highly politicised atmosphere…