Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is a poet whose very name conjures up a specific persona: the gloomy, death-obsessed and darkly humorous observer of human foibles and failings. The truth, both about the man and his work, is more complex, but the…

Owen Sheers (b. 1974, Fiji) was chosen as one of the Next Generation Poets and as one of the Independent’s top 30 young British writers on the strength of his first book of poetry, The Blue Book. His second, Skirrid…

David Harsent (b. 1942) won the 2005 Forward Prize for Legion, which was also shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and the TS Eliot Award; he has also been the recipient of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, an Eric Gregory Award,…

Rudyard Kipling (b. 1865- d. 1936) was born in Bombay (present day Mumbai). His father was a teacher in a local school of art. At the age of six he was sent to England to be educated and spent a…

Peter Porter’s (1929-2010) urbane poetry was first published in 1961, since when he published sixteen collections and much journalism, collaborated with visual arts, and was Writer-in-Residence at several universities, including Hull, Reading, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Sydney. He was awarded…

Kit Wright (b. 1944) is the author of more than twenty-five books, for both adults and children, and the winner of awards including an Arts Council Writers’ Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Alice Hunt Bartlett…

Harold Pinter (1930 – 2008) is best known for theatrical work, but was a poet before a playwright, and in early 2005, told the BBC that he was leaving plays to focus on poetry and political speeches. His poetry publications…

Michael Longley (b.1939, Belfast) is a central figure in contemporary Irish poetry. A forceful figure within the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, where he founded the literary programme, he is one of the 200 distinguished artists who are members of…

Mimi Khalvati (b. 1944, Tehran) spent much of her childhood at boarding school on the Isle of Wight, only returning to Iran at seventeen. She has been resident in the UK since the age of twenty-five, where she has published…

Sebastian Barker (1945–2014) was the author of many books of poetry and editor of The London Magazine. An ex-chairman of the Poetry Society, he was a director of several literary festivals, including the Royal Berkshire Poetry Festival, and held various…

Wendy Cope (b. 1945) is a poet whose witty lyrics and pitch-perfect parodies have gained her a readership far beyond most of her peers. Born in Erith, Kent, she read History at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. She then taught in…

Seamus Heaney (1939 – 2013) was the eldest child of nine born to a farming family in County Derry, Northern Ireland. He won a scholarship to St Columb’s College, Derry, beginning an academic career that would lead, through Queen’s University…

Gillian Clarke (b. 1937) is one of the central figures in contemporary Welsh poetry, the third to take up the post of National Poet of Wales. Her own poems have achieved widespread critical and popular acclaim (her Selected Poems has…

Felix Dennis (1947 – 2014) was the colourful publishing entrepreneur whose company, Dennis Publishing, owns many successful titles including flagship publication The Week. A regular fixture in the Sunday Times rich list Dennis travelled a long way since the poverty…

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…

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…

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…

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…