Charlotte Turner was born in 1749 into the landed gentry. Her father owned two prosperous estates, Stoke Place in Surrey and Bignor Park in Sussex, but gambling losses destroyed his fortune; aged fifteen Charlotte was married off to the wealthy but…

In his poem ‘Alba Einstein’ Robert Crawford re-imagines the famous scientist as a Scot (‘He’d always worn brogues. / Ate bannocks in exile’), a deceptively lighthearted take on one of the poet’s most enduring themes: the complexities of Scottish identity….

When Lorine Niedecker died of a brain haemorrhage in 1970 at the age of 67, her work was virtually unknown outside contemporary circles.  Indeed, some of the closest members of her family didn’t even know she wrote poetry. Five days…

Nigel McLoughlin was born in Enniskillen in 1968. In 2005 he moved to take up post at the University of Gloucestershire where he is now Professor of Creativity & Poetics. He has published five poetry collections and written many contributions…

Helen Mort was born in Sheffield, grew in Derbyshire, and studied Social and Political Sciences at Christ’s College, Cambridge. She has published two pamphlets with tall-lighthouse press, the shape of every box and a pint for the ghost (a Poetry…

Charles Boyle was born in Leeds, and worked in for a long time in publishing, including fourteen years at Faber and Faber. He is the author of six collections of poetry: Affinities (1977), House of Cards (1983), Sleeping Rough (1987),…

Andrew Marvell was born near Kingston Upon Hull in 1621, the son of a priest. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, but left his studies early when his father was drowned in a boating accident on the Humber. He travelled abroad for…

Alison Brackenbury was born in 1953 in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. She read English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and has worked as a librarian in a technical college (1976-83), then as a part-time accounts and clerical assistant (1985-1989). From 1990 until…

Born in Welwyn Garden City, England, to Welsh parents in 1962, Glyn Maxwell was educated at Oxford University and Boston University, where he studied poetry and theatre with Derek Walcott. He moved to the USA in 1996, teaching first at…

Edward Thomas wrote all his poetry in less than three years, between 1914, when he wrote his first, and 1917, when he was killed in the Battle of Arras. Most of his poems were published posthumously; they show sensitive observation…

Denis Glover emerged as a poet in New Zealand in the 1930s, one of the new artistic generation of modernists and nationalists. A product of two of New Zealand’s elite secondary schools — Auckland Grammar School and Christ’s College —…

Born in Birmingham, England, Cilla McQueen moved to New Zealand when she was four years old. She ranks amongst the finest poets of her generation, with honours which include three New Zealand Book Awards, the 2009 Prime Minister’s Award for…

Velma Pollard was born in 1937. She grew up in Woodside, a rural Jamaican village, where her mother was a school teacher and her father was a farmer: their interest in the arts was to be one of the main…

Frederick William Harvey is remembered today as a poet and central figure in a circle, including Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells, which emerged in Gloucester before the First World War. In the inter-war years, working as a solicitor, Harvey became…

Todd Swift was born in Montreal in 1966 and grew up by the St Lawrence Seaway, a landscape that shaped the development of his imagination. He studied Creative Writing at Concordia University, tutored by Gary Geddes and Robert Allen. After…

Shelley was born at Field Place, near Horsham, the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, MP for the Duke of Norfolk’s pocket borough of Shoreham-by-sea. Shelley was educated at Eton, where he was known as ‘Mad Shelley’, and University College…

Richard Reeve was born in 1976, and grew up in Dunedin. He has a PhD from the University of Otago centering on New Zealand poetry within the context of twentieth century European continental philosophy (Sein-Language: a Hermeneutic of New Zealand…

Sam Hunt is a rare commodity in New Zealand: a ham actor playing to the gallery and willing to go out on a limb; he’s also a highly-effective poet, wise about his craft, while being a national icon. Partly this…