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)…

Canadian poet Richard Harrison is a shrewd writer who is as much concerned with the question of poetry and its composition as he is personal histories; his poems are discursive and self-referential, yet never subordinated to the cerebral in a…

Toni Stuart was born in Cape Town in 1983 and grew up in the city. Her poetry has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Looking Back, Going Forward: Young Voices on Freedom (British Council, STE Publishers, 2004), and…

Makhosazana (Khosi) Xaba’s poetry, fiction and academic work reflects a lifetime actively involved with politics. Born in Greytown, Kwazulu-Natal, Xaba is trained as both a midwife and a psychiatric nurse, has worked with national and international NGOs and media organisations in…

  Playful, impassioned, deftly musical and energised, Selina Tusitala Marsh’s poems leap off the page and bet to be read aloud. Hers is a poetry often balanced between two seemingly distinct worlds: a modern New Zealand that is urbane, cultured…

John Glenday had published four collections of poetry at the time of his recording for the Poetry Archive: The Apple Ghost (Peterloo Poets, 1989), which received a Scottish Arts Council Book Prize; Undark (Peterloo Poets, 1995), which was a Poetry…

George Elliott Clarke is a skillful, candid writer whose output incorporates poetry, screenplays, opera libretti and verse drama. His poems are highly politically engaged, addressing issues, including those pertaining to race and identity, in ways that are both collective and…

Isobel Dixon was born in Mthatha, South Africa. She studied English at Stellenbosch University, before pursuing postgraduate study at Edinburgh University. She now lives in Cambridge and works as a literary agent in London, returning frequently to Cape Town and…

Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore, Pakistan, came to England when she was a few months old, and grew up in Hatfield. The experience she describes in her recording of ‘growing up… and feeling half-Pakistani… on the edge of things’…

Liz Berry was born and brought up in the Black Country, and now lives in Birmingham. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2009, and an Arvon-Jerwood mentorship in 2011, and in 2012 she won the Poetry London competition. Her…

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, born at Hillbrow in Johannesburg, is an award-winning South African writer and performance artist. The daughter of an Australian mother and a Ghanaian father, she was given up for adoption at nine months of age, although…

Gwyneth Lewis is one of the most prominent Welsh poets of her generation, and the first writer to take up the Welsh Laureateship. She wrote the bilingual words that front the Wales Millennium Centre, in six foot high stained glass…

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…

Kelwyn Sole is a South African poet, born in Johannesburg in 1951. After studying English at the University of Witwatersrand, and taking an MA from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, he began a career teaching…