Andrew McMillan’s debut collection physical was the only collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. It also won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award (2016), an Eric Gregory Award (2016) and a Northern Writers’ award (2014)…

Louise Glück is an American poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, with the judges praising “her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”. The poet Craig Morgan Teicher has described her as a…

Eavan Boland was one of the foremost female Irish writers. Being a female poet in Ireland presented many challenges for Boland. In her collection of essays, ‘Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time’ she…

Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4th 1928, and raised in Arkansas. She is often referred to as the pioneer for African-American Women’s writing in the U.S. and remains an internationally celebrated storyteller. Angelou’s poetry, autobiographical fiction, essays…

Sir Geoffrey William Hill, FRSL was a poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation, described…

Born Frances Crofts Darwin, Cornford grew up in Cambridge and was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Her early verse was widely popular attracting positive reviews, but attention waned thereafter.  She was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Poetry (1959).  She published…

Marianne Moore (1887-1972) was born in St, Louis, Missouri. She grew up in her maternal grandfather’s house, where her mother acted as a housekeeper. Moore’s father, an inventor, was committed to an asylum. On his death, Moore moved with her…

Masefield was born in Hertfordshire.  Both his parents died when he was young. He was educated at Warwick School and became a Merchant Seaman, joining HMS Conway.  He deserted the navy in 1895 and spent time in the USA in…

Bergvall was born in Germany and has lived in Switzerland, France, Norway, the UK and the USA.  An academic, she has received degrees from Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, the University of Warwick, and the Dartington College of Arts. She…

Born in Salford, Lancashire, John Cooper Clarke is a multi-faceted writer, musician, artist, and performer. a well-known and much-loved voice on stage, television, radio and at Festivals.  He has toured the UK and internationally. Described as a ‘people’s poet, his…

Rosemary Tonks (born in 1928) was an English poet and author. After publishing two poetry collections, multiple novels and prose pieces, she disappeared from the public eye after a lengthy illness. Tonks worked for the BBC, writing stories and reviewing…

  Born in Arlington, Massachusetts in 1926, Creely was educated at Holderness School, Plymouth and Harvard University. Creeley’s father died in 1930 and he was raised by his mother and sister. He was left blind in one eye following a…

After winning the 1961 Transatlantic Review national short story competition when he was just seventeen, Richard Berengarten has since been the recipient of many international awards and distinctions, far too many to summarise here. Significant highlights include an Eric Gregory…

A poet, playwright, essayist and editor, John Drinkwater was born in Leytonstone, London. He left school at fifteen and turned to literature after a short career working as an Insurance Agent. His first published poetry collection was ‘Poems: 1903 (C….

Joelle Taylor is a poet, playwright & author. She became the UK Slam champion in 2000 and founded  SLAMbassadors, the UK national youth Slam championship, where she served as artistic director & coach 2001 to 2018. Published works include Songs…

The UK Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai was open between 1 October 2021 and 31 March 2022, offering an experience with poetry generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI, the Algorithm).  Visitors were asked to donate one word to the Algorithm, which…

Celia A Sorhaindo is a poet from the Caribbean island of Dominica, where she now resides after living many years in the UK. Her poetry has been widely published in journals ranging from The Caribbean Writer to New Daughters of Africa, and longlisted for the UK National Poetry Competition (2017/18). Her first pamphlet, ‘Guabancex’ (Papillote Press, 2020) was longlisted for the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean literature, and her poem ‘Weather Conditions’ was among the winners of Poetry Archive’s WordView 2020 Collection. Her first full length poetry collection, ‘Radical Normalisation’, is due to be published in the autumn of 2022 (Carcanet Press).  

Malika Booker is the author of ‘Breadfruit’ (Flipped Eye Publishing, 2007) and ‘Pepper Seed’ (Peepal Tree Press, 2013), which was longlisted for the 2014 OCM Bocas Prize and shortlisted for the 2014 Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. More recently, she has won the 2019 Cholmondeley Award and the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.