The Poetry Society

Timothy Jones 

It was after I had been a missionary looking after street children in Brazil that I started to write poetry; I joined the Poetry Society soon after. I think someone in church suggested that we should all try and bring something to our small church meeting and so I thought about writing a poem.

Claire Askew 

My father introduced me to poetry and remains my most honest and useful critic. I’m also part of a small group of Edinburgh writers called the Blind Poets (named after our local pub!) – together, we’ve recently launched Edinburgh’s first entirely independent literary magazine, Read This (www.readthismagazine.co.uk).

Colette Olney 

I write regularly and have had some competition success. See Poetry News, late 2003. I’ve been published in Cyphers (an Irish poetry journal) & The Irish Times and gave a reading in Cork’s Triskel in February this year and in Dublin’s Temple Bar Print Gallery in April.

David A. Hill 

Three collections so far, the last being Singing to Seals (The Collective Press, 1999). My fourth, Mothworld, is currently under consideration. I have also published translations from Italian, Serbian, French and Hungarian, the latter in Modern Poetry in Translation.

Allison McVety 

My first collection The Night Trotsky Came to Stay was published by Smith/Doorstop as a result of winning the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition 2006. It has been nominated for this year's Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

Heidi Williamson 

I started writing about six years ago, and have been published in several poetry mags since, and placed in a couple of competitions – one local, one national.

Carrie Etter

After growing up in Illinois and living for 13 years in southern California, I moved to England in 2001. I teach poetry at Bath Spa University and for The Poetry School, and my first collection, The Tethers, will be published by Seren Books in July 2009. Poetry has been the driving force in my life since I was a teenager.

Verica Peacock

I belong to the Inn Scribers writing group in Harlow, where we meet fortnightly on alternate Tuesdays www.the-inn-scribers.co.uk. Prize winner twice in Writers’ Forum; also, 1st and 2nd prizes in Haiku Competitions, Chimera magazine, Never Bury Poetry, several anthologies, Sea Shells anthology and Albatross Rumanian Haiku publications, Poetry in the Gibberd Garden. There’s some poetry in my autobiography The Find.

Dennis O'Driscoll

I was born in County Tipperary in the first minute of the first day of 1954. My collections include New and Selected Poems (Anvil, 2004) and Reality Check (Anvil, 2007). A selection of essays and reviews, Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams (Gallery Press), was published in 2001. I edited the Bloodaxe Book of Poetry Quotations (2006). Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (Faber and Faber), was published in 2008. I have worked as a civil servant since the age of
16. www.dennisodriscoll.com.

Jeremy Keighley  

I write regularly and have done for about 15 years. Before that I was more sporadic. Despite numerous attempts & a few near misses, I have been published only 3 times, most recently as the only English language poet in a volume of mostly Dutch poetry Alkmaar Anders. 

Kate Noakes 

I've been published in lots of magazines and my first collection, Ocean to Interior, was published by Mighty Erudite Press in December 2007. I'm part of Poets’ Café in Reading, Thin Raft (Reading based poetry workshop) and I am presently studying for an MPhil in Creative Writing at Glamorgan.

Michael W Thomas 

I’ve published two print collections and one on CD. My next print collection is out with Peterloo in 2009. I’m affiliated to the St John’s Poets in Worcestershire, who do really good work. Since 2004, Michael has been poet-in-residence at the annual Robert Frost Poetry Festival, Key West, Florida. www.michaelwthomas.co.uk

Phuoc-Tan Diep 

I have written over 50 poems in my first year, with some success. My poetry has appeared in various places including Ink Sweat and Tears, flashquake and Poetry News; receiving an honourable mention (coming second) in the 2008 Hamish Canham Prize. I have also published a free e-chapbook and edit a new webzine called The Cleave (http://cleavepoetry.wordpress.com/). My poetry blog is: wake up, sleeper (http://ptdiep.wordpress.com).

Julia Bird

My first job was in an arts centre in Gloucestershire. We wanted to organise a poetry project, I remember trepidatiously calling the Poetry Society for advice, delighted that such a compendium of poetry knowledge existed and was mine for the use of. Many more poetry projects followed, including my own collection Hannah and the Monk, published by Salt. 
www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844714230.htm

Julia Webb 

I have written poetry on and off since I was a teenager although I have only really started to develop as a poet in the last few years. I am specialising in poetry in the final year of my BA and have been lucky enough to be taught by George Szirtes, Helen Ivory, Andrea Holland and Martin Figura. I have had work published in two issues of the NSAD journal Veto and in the online journal Ink, Sweat and Tears.  

Martin Zarrop 

So far I’ve published 8 poems out of almost 100 I’ve written. I haven’t submitted anything since last October but the pressure is increasing! I belong to local writing groups in Hale (round the corner), Chester and Ruthin (50 miles away).

Pascale Petit

I have published four collections, of which The Huntress and The Zoo Father (Seren) were both shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and were books of the year in the TLS. My new collections are The Treekeeper’s Tale (2008) and in 2009 The Thorn Necklace – Forty poems after Frida Kahlo (both Seren). I am a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University, tutor at Oxford University, Tate Modern and travel widely. www.pascalepetit.co.uk.

Stephanie Norgate

My pamphlet Fireclay was published by SmithDoorstop in 1998. Then a selection of poems appeared in Oxford Poets 2000 (Carcanet). Hidden River (Bloodaxe 2008) has just been shortlisted for the Forward Best First Collection prize. The first poem I chewed, sorry – knew, was Blake’s The Lamb – in a washable nylon lambshaped toddler book. I’ve been addicted ever since.

Pat Huwyler

I have written a few poems in my self-published collection of flash fictions, Duppy’s World. I have now entered into several poetry competitions. I think it is important for poets to go down non-traditional paths and study the lyrics of rap artists such as Tupac Shakur – ‘street poetry’ is as real and relevant as it gets.

Sabine Huynh

I've been published in The Dudley Review and in Poetica Magazine. I translated two poems of Uri Orlev, from Hebrew into French, in a French anthology about children during the Holocaust: L'Enfant et le genocide, Editions Robert Laffont in 2007. I’m currently translating the full book of Poems from Bergen-Belsen, by Uri Orlev from Hebrew into French. You can read some of my poetry on www.cyclamensandswords.com.

Todd Swift

My poems have appeared in The Guardian, Poetry London, and Poetry Review. I am the editor of many poetry anthologies, including 100 Poets Against The War; and poetry editor of Nthposition. Seaway: New and Selected Poems is out from Salmon Publishing, November 2008. As Oxfam GB's poet-in-residence, I ran the Oxfam Poetry Series, and edited CDs: Life Lines and Life Lines 2. I have an MA in Creative Writing from UEA, and am core tutor with The Poetry School. I lecture in Creative Writing at Kingston University.

Stephen Wilson

About sixteen years ago I began to publish occasional poems in magazines but it’s only during the last few years that I’ve devoted half my week to poetry and the other half to psychiatry. I’ve had three poems in Poetry News, and ‘Footprints’ was shortlisted for the Hamish Canham Prize in 2007. My first collection: Fluttering Hands, was published by Greenwich Exchange in Spring 2008.

Charles Lauder

I took time out to write a novel but in 1998 someone showed me a collection of ancient Chinese poems, and I suddenly realised how much I had missed poetry.  I try to spend most mornings writing and not get distracted by e-mails or house duties. Since 2003, when I started spending more time on my poetry, I’ve had about a dozen and a half poems published in various British journals.

Bill Greenwell 

I was New Statesman’s weekly satirical poet from about 1994 to 2002. Cinnamon published a collection of mine, Impossible Objects, in 2006, which was shortlisted (despite my advanced age) for the Forward Prize’s Best First Collection.

Sarah Wardle 

Happily I won Poetry Review's New Poet of the Year Award in 1999. Fields Away (Bloodaxe, 2003), shortlisted for the Forward best first collection prize, was followed by SCORE! (Bloodaxe, 2005), which includes some of the poems I broadcast while poet-in-residence for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, as well as the script for a filmpoem, X: A Poetry Political Broadcast. A Knowable World is due from Bloodaxe in 2009.

Jane Holland 

I have published two collections: The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman (Bloodaxe, 1997) and Boudicca & Co (Salt, 2006). When I was about nine years old, I was taken by my parents to Keats’ house at Hampstead Heath. I slavishly memorised Ode to a Nightingale on the way home and can still remember large chunks of it today!

Esther Morgan 

Reading poetry had always been important to me but it was my time as a volunteer at the Wordsworth Trust in Cumbria that encouraged me to start writing my own poems. It was an inspiring place with lots of contemporary poets giving readings, as well as the wonderful collection of Wordsworth manuscripts. That was 15 years ago and since then I've published two collections with Bloodaxe, the latest being The Silence Living in Houses (2005).

Susan McMillan 

I’ve always wanted to write but never had the time. Four years ago the job I had provided me with space enough to begin. Poetry was one of the workshops I attended and it has gradually evolved from there. I still keep in touch via the web with Dead Good Poets Society where I was a member in Aberdeen.

Eliza Wyatt 

Drawers full of poems, published a few. I think Isfahan is the most poetic city because the people speak breathe and live poetry.

Nikki Bennett

I have four self-published 'chap books', one written during a long hospital stay, the sales of which went towards funding a new scanner. I have sold books in Europe and the US, some of which were to 'Business & Professional Women'. I am the Poetry Society Stanza Rep for Bath. I also host the 'uni-verse' poetry group celebrating international poets and poetry - details on www.nikkibennettpoems.com.

Michael Symmons Roberts

I won the Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Forward Prize, and twice for the TS Eliot Prize. My collaboration with James MacMillan has led to two BBC Proms choral commissions, song cycles, music theatre works and an opera for the Welsh National Opera – The Sacrifice. The Half Healed is published by Cape next week. www.symmonsroberts.com

Eric Thompson 

I have three collections published (Love Songs for the Romantically Challenged, Democracy for Birds, and Colquhounsville-sur-Mer), plus several poems in magazines. Some performed on radio. eric AT t@camiseskan1.demon.co.uk 

Mimi Khalvati

I was born in Iran and have lived in England since the age of six. My six Carcanet collections include Selected Poems (2000), The Chine (2005) and The Meanest Flower (2007), which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. I received a Cholmondeley Award in 2006. I was the founder and Coordinator of The Poetry School from 1997-2004, and I now teach for the School, as well as working as a freelance poetry tutor.

Anna Lindup 

As well as attending poetry events (incl. the brilliant Shane L. Koyczan and Baba Brinkman @ BAC) I read my own poetry and am a member of The Poetry Show. Solo and Poetry Show performances include: Glastonbury – Poetry & Words, The Old Operating Theatre, Poetry Café, Lingfield, The White Bear, Lately’s, 3rd Poetry Festival.

Norbert Hirschhorn

The Poetry Society is my first contact with the poetry scene in the UK and welcoming it has been. My first collection was published in 1999 - A Cracked River (Slow Dancer Press); three pamphlets - The Empress of Certain (Poet's Corner Press, 2005), Sailing with the Pleaides (Main Street Rag, 2007), The Terrible Crystal (Hearing Eye 2008); and a second full collection, Mourning in the Presence of a Corpse (Dar al-Jadeed, 2008). Details at my website: www.bertzpoet.com.

Chiara Salomoni 

I have written over than one hundred poems. I took part in some poetry competitions and some of my poems have been published in the competition anthologies. One of my poems has been published in a Christmas anthology.

Christopher North

I run 7 day residential courses in Spain via the Poetry School. A Mesh of Wires (Smith Doorstop 1999) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. I was third in the 1995 National and won the 2007 Silver Wyvern at the ‘Poetry on the Lake' Festival, Italy. Other work includes Collecting the Forest and a handbook on the creative writer's notebook. A bi-lingual edition of some 16 new poems with Terry Gifford will be published in 2009. www.oldolivepress.com. 

Andrew Kelly

Writing is such a solitary pursuit and like most writers I’m prone to doubts so it was heartening to join up with others. Beavering away for 25 years now, published a bit here and there. It was when I discovered Theodore Roethke that Poetry came to mean so much.

Philomena Ewing

Floating in the Blue was published in 2007 and Siempre, Siempre, Siempre in March 2008, both from Palores Publications, 21st Century Writers series, Redruth, Cornwall. I have also had poems published in Aesthetica magazine 2008 - In the Gardens of Spain was featured in their Feb/March collection as being some of the best new writing in the UK. Also Coffee House Canada, Poetry Monthly, Poetry Cornwall and Decanto Poetry Anthology 2008.

Alison Brackenbury

I may be Britain’s only poet in a boiler suit! Born in Lincolnshire in 1953, I am now a self-employed metal finisher in Gloucestershire. I have published seven collections, which have won Eric Gregory and Cholmondeley Awards. My latest collection is Singing in the Dark, Carcanet, 2008. “A quiet lyricism and delight”, (The Guardian). “Grace and authenticity”, (Poetry London). For full details, and poems, including selected horses and cats, please visit www.alisonbrackenbury.co.uk.

Jamie Hannaford 

Being a member of the Poetry Society  provides me with examples of other poets' work. Originally, I became interested in poetry over the internet; particularly with how language is used, coaxed and manipulated ideally for a purpose or message ­– a potent skill which fascinated me. 

Peter Philpott

I was published in the 70s & 80s by Ferry Press and Grosseteste, more recently by Shearsman (Textual Possessions, 2004). I also run a poetry ezine, www.greatworks.org.uk. I joined the Poetry Society with a revival of my interest in poetry as a social as well as personal practice, about 2000.

Lesley Rowe

When I took an OU course in creative writing, one module was poetry. I dreaded it and had inbuilt resistances to overcome. One good mark and I was hooked! Can’t seem to stop that process now I’ve ‘found’ poetry. As well as exploring and experimenting the differing forms, I have published a small anthology of my work, Butterflies and Wishes.

Leah Fritz

I've written poems since I was about eight, had a few published in magazines in the States - a prose/poem is in the perennial anthology Sisterhood is Powerful, edited by Robin Morgan and published by Random House in 1970 - but I'm enormously proud that most of my poetry has been published in the U.K., in four volumes and an illustrated booklet. The most recent is Going, Going... , published by bluechrome in 2007.

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Daljit Nagra

I was born and raised in West London, then Sheffield, and currently live in Willesden where I work in a secondary school. My first collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover!, won the 2007 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. In 2008 I won the South Bank Show / Arts Council Decibel Award.

Paul Tubb

I write nonsense/comic verse/songs and perform them to children around Ireland. I have self printed a few chapbooks which I donate to schools and libraries… Apart from that, I’ve been a bit lazy trying to get published although I can be read on the web.

Susan Mace

Originally a literature teacher, I was born in Somerset, now run and own language schools in Rio, Brazil. I won several prizes for poems, essays and short-stories when at school and university and recently won a few online poetry competitions, both in English and in Portuguese. I have written on and off for years, but not had the time to revise or follow-up, so do it mostly for enjoyment. I am a better reader than writer and love the Poetry News and Review. Pictured here with grandaughter Isabella.

Delores Gauntlett

I've published two books: Freeing Her Hands To Clap 2001, Jamaica Observer; and The Watertank Revisited 2004 Peepal Tree Press. Some poems have also appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Poetry News, Kunapipi, The Jamaica Journal, Hampden-Sydney Review, Bayswater-Germany, Calabash Journal of Caribbean Arts, Jamaican Newspapers (The Jamaica Observer and The Gleaner), New Caribbean Poetry Anthology – Carcanet Press; and a small collection to appear in Journal of Caribbean Literatures.

Ian McMillan

I’m a judge for this year's Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, poet-in-residence for Barnsley FC & The Academy of Urbanism, a cutting edge group devoted to defining & driving our urban environments. I host The Verb on BBC R3. Chelp and Chunter How To Talk Tyke (Collins) is out now and I'm on tour 20-29 Oct'07. www.ian-mcmillan.co.uk/

Daffni Percival

Since moving to Wales I help organise poetry readings at Dolgellau’s Theatr Fach. I have written many poems and published in several small press magazines. I started writing as a child but in my teens gave up completely on the grounds that I couldn’t write anything to match ‘evening full of the linnet’s wings’. Wrote no more until a rather traumatic period when I finished up for four months in hospital with depression. Hospital provided a lot of time to write and I have continued ever since.

Anne Stevenson

My collections include Living in America (Generation Press, 1965), Reversals (1970) and Correspondences (1974) – both Wesleyan, Granny Scarecrow, A Report from the Border and Poems 1955–2005 (all Bloodaxe). My most recent collection, Stone Milk (Bloodaxe), came out in 2007. I’m also the author of Bitter Fame, A Life of Sylvia Path (Penguin, 1990) and Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop (Bloodaxe, 2006).

Andy Wilkes

I really enjoy writing poetry and it is a great way for me to reflect theologically. I have had a poem about Saint Francis printed in a book of Franciscan reflections, but it is a clumsy attempt at rhyme. I much prefer ‘just playing with words’ as I call it now. I’ve recently entered some competitions, and I also write a blog http://amanbreathing.blogspot.com which contains some of my humble efforts. The title comes from a line in RS Thomas’ In Church.

Jeffa Kay

I have written many poems, some published in magazines and anthologies. I take part in poetry open mike and slam events. I have also performed with others for International Women’s Day and other special occasions.

Tracey Haines

I have written several poems; two have been accepted for publication in the Parish Magazine, and one has been accepted for a Forward Press 2008 anthology. At the moment, I am trying to publish an anthology of my poems. I present Pause for Poetry on an Internet radio station, which involves reading poems and discussing their imagery, linking different poems to the programme’s theme.

George Szirtes

I was born in Budapest in 1948 and came to England as a refugee in 1956. I went to school in London and studied art. My first book, The Slant Door (1979), was joint-winner of the Faber Memorial Prize. The last, Reel (2004) won the TS Eliot Prize. Since 1984 I have also been translating books from the Hungarian. My New and Collected Poems appears in late 2008.

Penelope Shuttle

I’ve lived in Cornwall since 1970. I was married to the poet Peter Redgrove who died in 2003, after years of ill-health. Redgrove was awarded The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1996. My first major collection of poems, The Orchard Upstairs, appeared from Oxford University Press in 1981. Since then I’ve published eight collections plus a Selected Poems. Redgrove's Wife (Bloodaxe Books), 2006, was short-listed for The Forward Prize and for The TS Eliot Award. I am Chair of the Falmouth Poetry Group.

Simon Freedman

Several of my poems are available on www.simonfreedman.co.uk, and I have been published in several magazines including The Recusant and Ink Sweat & Tears. I have participated in Poetry Unplugged at the Poetry Cafe, London, which is fantastic, and also attended a Poetry Review launch where Ruth Fainlight read magnificently. 

Judy Brown

My pamphlet, Pillars of Salt, was published in 2006 by Templar Poetry as one of the winners of their first pamphlet competition. I received the Hamish Canham Poetry Prize in 2005.

Sarah James

I heard Spike Milligan in Cardiff in the 90s and Andrew Motion in Lichfield, when we lived there. I've also been both a member of the audience and a participant at a writelink.co.uk poetry performance and a Birmingham University student event. More recently, I have regularly read at Droitwich town festivals. I've written and published many poems since 1999, in literary journals including Orbis, Raw Edge and Guardian Online and in competition anthologies. http://sarah-james.co.uk.

Philip Gross

I’m a writer of several parts - but the heartland has always been poetry. Winning the National Poetry Competition in 1982 was an abrupt entry into that world, but twelve collections have followed, from Faber and Bloodaxe – including three for young people. A new book, The Water Table, is due from Bloodaxe in 2009, as is I Spy Pinhole Eye (a collaboration with photographer Simon Denison) from Cinnamon Press.

Yulia Dmitrieva

I've been interested in poetry as long as I can remember. My favourite children’s books were poems. I have always been fascinated by languages and also by music. For me, poetry represents the best of both worlds.  I started writing poems this year but haven’t published anything yet. I have also written a poem which I hope will become an illustrated children’s book.

Elaine Ruth White

I'm rep for two Poetry Society Stanzas - Brighton, where I mainly meet people on line, and (newly) Falmouth, of which I am the only member (it's early days). I've just finished editing COASTERS An Illustrated Poetry Anthology www.atlanticpressbooks.com. I'm a poet and playwright primarily, and so am freelance. I am just been commissioned by English Touring Opera to write a series of poems for a forthcoming production of theirs. 

Anthony Suter

I am the author of four published collections, the latest being When You Get to '"G.Y", (Redbeck Press, 2004), an evocation of the voices which peopled my childhood teenage and young adult years in Grimsby. Recently working on a new cycle of love poems, under the provisional title Oaks End, and some of which were first presented to the public as a staged reading at the Galerie Palladion, Toulouse, last May.

Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

I have published two collections, Rockclimbing In Silk (Seren, 2001) and Not In These Shoes (Picador, 2008). In 2005 I was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship to work on my second collection. I currently hold a fellowship at the Centre for Creative Writing, University of Wales, Lampeter. www.rhydderch.com.

Ros Barber 

I’m the author of two Anvil collections, How Things Are On Thursday (2004) and Material (2008), a PBS recommendation. I’ve been poet in residence at Arts Council England and the Gulbenkian-winning Pallant House Gallery. Commissions have included sonnets for Herne Bay and Brighton’s Embassy Court, and a book about the Isle of Sheppey in rhyming couplets. I’m currently writing a verse novel about Christopher Marlowe, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. www.rosbarber.info.

Paul Hyland

I’m a poet, travel writer and biographer. All my biographies of places – Purbeck, Wight, Congo, India, Iberia – have been books of the year in UK or US broadsheets. Awards, commissions, residencies and collaborations with artists/musicians. Much poetry broadcast, including Poems of Z, the first of five Bloodaxe books. Getting Into Poetry is “essential reading” (Suzi Feay). Art of the Impossible: New and Selected Poems, was published in 2004.
www.davidhigham.co.uk/html/Clients/Paul_Hyland

Jane Draycott

I have had four collections published, two of which (Prince Pupert's Drop and The Night Tree, from Carcanet/Oxford) were PBS Recommendations. My first two collections were shortlisted for the Forward Prize. I like working collaboratively: in 1998 I co-wrote Christina the Astonishing (Two Rivers Press ) with Lesley Saunders, and with Elizabeth James I've made several pieces for radio. I'm currently working on a translation of the medieval dream-vision Pearl and a new collection Over, due April 2009. http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/janedraycott/.

Naomi Foyle

I was born in London and grew up in Hong Kong, Liverpool and Saskatchewan, Canada. My pamphlet Red Hot & Bothered (Lansdowne Press) won the Apples and Snakes Book Bites Back competition. My debut collection The Night Pavilion (Waterloo Press) was made an Autumn 2008 PBS Recommendation.

Joanna Boulter

I grew up in Wiltshire and now live in Darlington. Three pamphlet collections of my poetry have been published, and my collection Twenty Four Preludes and Fugues on Dmitri Shostakovich (Arc Publications) was shortlisted for the Forward First Collection prize 2007. I’m now extending my interest in poetry and music by collaborating with the composer Andrew Webb-Mitchell on a symphonic song-cycle,  Songs of Awe and Wonder.

Hugh Dunkerley

I have published two pamphlet collections, Walking to the Fire Tower (Redbeck Press) and Fast (Pighog Press). A full collection entitled Hare will be published by Cinnamon Press in 2010. I am the chair of The South, an organisation which promotes poets and writers in the South East. I belong to a workshop group in Brighton and am also the West Sussex Poet Laureate, promoting poetry in the county.

Diana Brodie

I was born in New Zealand, but have lived in Cambridge for forty years. I have been writing poems since about 1995, and from tentative beginnings, am now thoroughly absorbed by it. Published in a number of poetry magazines, including Agenda, twice among the winners in Poetry News Members’ Competitions, shortlisted for the 2008 Hamish Canham Prize. I have just completed my first collection.

Catherine Ormell

I like the way poems appear out of the ether and then set off in unexpected directions; my Campaign Desk poem (shortlisted for the 2008 Forward prize for best single poem) arose because our street was alive with builders and I kept moving from room to room, sans desk. A former journalist, I’ve had poems published in the The London Magazine and THE SHOp, various prize anthologies, and am working on a collection.

Caroline Carver

I won the National Poetry Prize in 1998 and I’ve published Jigharzi An Me (Semicolon Press, 2000), in West Indian dialect, and Bone-Fishing (Peterloo Poets, 2006). I’m a Hawthornden Fellow and poet-in-residence at Trebah Gardens, Cornwall. A number of poems have been broadcast on Romanian radio and will be published there in translation in 2009. I won the 2008 Silver Wyvern Prize from Poetry On The Lake, North Italy.

Emma Danes

I have worked as a writer, editor and teacher, and currently live with my family near Cambridge. I have been writing poetry seriously for about eight years, and belong to various writing groups, including my local Poetry Society Stanza. My poems have been published several times in Poetry News and Magma, and I have a poem in the Templar anthology Buzz. I won the Poetry Society Stanza Poetry Competition in 2007 and I was runner up this year. 

Wendy Cope

I began writing poems in my late twenties while I was a full-time primary school teacher in South London. I didn’t expect it to lead to a different life as a freelance writer and I am still rather surprised. My first book, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, was published in 1986. The most recent is Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979-2006.

Alan Summers

I fell in love with writing poetry during a stay in Queensland, Australia where the big skies and rich bird-life got me writing six or more poems a day. Since then, I have mainly been concerned with haiku which I have published in various international websites, and anthologies and have also taught in various workshops including a recent With Words presentation at the Thames Festival. www.withwords.org.uk.

Nicky C Jones

Born in Oxford, I now live in North Wales where I work from home. I have loved poetry since first hearing the classics at school. I have written many poems, and have had some published in an anthology. I have a book of my poems too, Nicky Jones My Life in Poems, which links small sections of prose with groups of poems, telling a story from start to finish.

Malcolm Carson

Born in Cleethorpes and now living in Carlisle, I first became interested in poetry from reading The New Poetry (the Alvarez version) whilst working as an auctioneer. I have since been published widely in magazines and anthologies as well as appearing in Take Five (Shoestring, 2003), and my full collection Breccia (Shoestring, 2007). I am a founding member of Border Poets which runs the Small Presses series of readings in Carlisle.

Katherine Gallagher

Born in Australia and have since lived in Paris and London. I have four full collections, including Passengers to the City (Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1985, shortlisted for the 1986 John Bray Adelaide National Award), Fish-rings on Water (Forest, 1989), Tigers on the Silk Road (Arc Publ., 2000) and Circus-Apprentice (Arc Publ., 2006). In 1981, I won the Warana Poetry Prize. In 1994, Forest Books published my translation of Jean-Jacques Celly’s prizewinning poems, Le Somnambule aux Yeux d’Argile. I now run regular workshops at Torriano and am the London North Poetry Society Stanza rep. www.katherine-gallagher.com .

Raed Al-Jishi

I was born and still live in Qateef, Saudi Arabia, a city that breathes poetry, where I regularly attend poetry readings. I have had 3 books of Arabic poems published (Suicidal Petals, The Remaining of a Glass and Dream) and I am expecting the 4th book (Fragments of Passion) to be published shortly. I will also be publishing a novel called The Gulfs Serpent.  http://www.arab-ewriters.com/?action=ShowWriter&&id=319

Shurooq Amin

I was born in Kuwait where I still live today. Since 2005, I have been published in more than 20 journals and magazines (www.theapetalouspoet.com), have won third place and an honourable mention in the Perigee 2007 Poetry contest, and was also nominated for the 2007 Pushcart Prize. In 2009, I will have a chapbook published by the Finishing Line Press.

Katrina Naomi

For a number of years I studied with Julia Casterton who got me interested in all sorts of poets, especially Sharon Olds and Mark Doty, who made me really want to write poetry myself. My first pamphlet, Lunch at the Elephant & Castle will be published by Templar Poetry in October www.templarpoetry.co.uk. I have made a lot of new friends through poetry and workshop poems regularly. 

Neil Curry 

Born on Tyneside, brought up on Merseyside, and live in the Lake District. After the University of Bristol, I taught in various secondary schools. Methuen and CUP published my versions of Euripides, which were widely performed. Enitharmon Press collections include The Bending of the Bow, Ships in Bottles (PBS Recommendation), Walking to Santiago, The Road to the Gunpowder House, and Selected Poems: Other Room (2007). The Cumberland Coast won a Lake District Book of the Year. Coming soon: a study of Alexander Pope, a book about George Herbert, and a verse sequence, Some Letter Never Sent. www.neilcurry.com

Gill Learner

My first published poem was in Poetry News in 2002 and I have since been published in several journals and anthologies as well as being read on BBC3 and reading myself on BBC1 South Today. I was delighted to win the Hamish Canham Poetry Prize 2008. I’m lucky to have a large circle of poetry loving friends whom I meet through local classes and workshops such as Reading’s Thin Raft.

Stella Thompson

 I was born Downpatrick, Northern Ireland and now live in Southampton where I am a member of the local Poetry Society Stanza group. I started writing poetry while sitting on an Executive Board in England and have since had a number of volumes and individual works published in The USA ( Rock Me, (www.publishamerica.com), the UK (www.forwardpress.co.uk and www.unitedpress.co.uk ) and Ireland.

Ann Alexander 

Born in Coventry, I now live in Penzance, where I’m deeply involved in the thriving local poetry scene. I became hooked on Poetry through an OU course in 20th century poetry, and have since published two collections from Peterloo - Nasty, British & Short and Facing Demons as well as work in magazines, anthologies and on the web.

Gabriel Griffin 

I have always been interested in poetry and have published in various magazines and anthologies. I was born in Wales but now live and work on a small island in Lake Orta, Northern Italy. As I couldn’t get to readings in UK, I decided to start a poetry festival here, Poetry on the Lake, in 2001, and annually entice poets to Orta and the island for readings, workshops and performances.

Rosemary Norman

I began writing as a child and have been an emerging poet ever since. Iron Press published Threats & Promises in 1991, and for two years I helped edit Iron magazine. Life on Mars, a pamphlet with accompanying video, was published by Hearing Eye in 1999. I work with video artist Stuart Pound using spoken poems as soundtrack, and text on screen. Recently I've tried performing live with video.

Roderick Ford 

My collection, The Shoreline of Falling, was shortlisted for a Glen Dimplex award for the best first books in Britain and Ireland. I've won the Listowel poetry collection and single poem prizes, and also the Francis Ledwidge Award. Shortlistings and commendations include Strokestown, the National Poetry Competition and Forward Prizes. My second collection, The Green Crown, will be published in 2009. I live in Dublin.

Helen Jagger Wood

I've written poetry since I could write, but studying poetry at school and university stoppered the flow. When I became an English teacher, that experience made me determined to encourage creativity in my students - just as my beloved father did - and I started writing again, moving from therapeutic to much better stuff now; Les Murray has published some! As a member of The Indian King Poets, I receive criticism that energises my work and for which I am profoundly grateful.

Dónal Thompson 

I was born into an Irish family in Wakefield but now live in Madrid and work as a writer and videographer. I have been published in an anthology by The Live Poets Society and also self-published my own collection called Internal Combustion. In 1992 I won the BBC Alfred Bradley Bursary for some poems. I am the founder of The Writing Region in Second Life.

David Kennedy

I have published three well-received collections with Salt: The President of Earth (2002), The Roads (2004), and The Devil’s Bookshop (2007). www.saltpublishing.com. I won 3rd Prize in The National Poetry Competition 2007. You can hear me reading a selection of my poetry at The Archive of the Now. www.archiveofthenow.org/

Patricia Morgan

Born in Winchester, I am an artist and a local Poetry Society Stanza member now living in Southampton. I’ve always read poetry but only began writing in 1997 when I was ill and unable to paint. Since then I have written loads and been published with illustrations in Obsessed with Pipework, Smoke, Fire, and Orbis. Flarestack published my pamphlet A Diet of Worms and Blackberries in 2007, with coloured drawings and recommended it for the Forward Prize. 

Godfrey Ackers

Born 1926, member since September 2004, educated at Kings School Canterbury and Oxford University. After time in the RNVR I worked for civil engineering practices in Britain and overseas. Married 53 years I have  three children and seven grandchildren. I started writing verse in 1945, was a Forward Spotlight poet in 2005, and won the Poetry London Prize in 2008. I lead the Poetry Society Plymouth Waterfront Writers Stanza.

Kirsten Mackintosh

I have eleven published poems and earlier this year a pamphlet was produced by Canada’s Right Heart Press. Mind Paintings, a collection of five poems, is being sold in aid of MIND and the Schizophrenia Society. The floor of my walk-in wardrobe is taken up by poetry notebooks written since the age of fourteen.

Graham Burchell

I live along the Exe estuary, have one full collection Vermeer’s Corner (Foothills Publishing 2008) and one chapbook Ladies of Divided Twins (Erbacce Press 2008). My poetry has been published in over a hundred magazines including: Acumen, South, Poetry Scotland, Borderland Texas Poetry Review and Euphony. A proud member of the Moor Poets, I edit the quarterly online poetry magazine Words-Myth www.words-myth.com

Nancy Campbell

Born in Exeter, I now live in London, having trained in North America as a printmaker and bookbinder. My English teacher read Chaucer aloud and kick-started my love of Mediaeval verse. I've written poems and made small books since I was a child. I have worked on a number of texts in collaboration with artists, most recently the series After Light which accompanies work by the photographer Paula Naughton.

Jeremy Page

My poems have appeared regularly in magazines and anthologies since 1986. My first was in an anthology of poems chosen by Edward Blishen and published by the Old Bull Arts Centre in Barnet. Two pamphlets, Bliss (1989) and Secret Dormitories (1993) have been published, and a full collection, The Alternative Version, appeared in 2001. I edit the bi-annual magazine The Frogmore Papers, which I co-founded in 1983.

Carole Bromley

I’ve always loved poetry, was inspired by good English teachers and university lecturers but only started writing myself about fifteen years ago. At the last count I’ve written 177 poems in magazines and also a pamphlet Unscheduled Halt (Smith/Doorstop 2005). I have also won a number of prizes including the Bridport. I live in York where I teach creative writing for the University of York’s Centre for Lifelong Learning.

Gail McNeill

A Mancunian by birth, my recent PGCE placement was at Styal Prison and I am now at Bible College. Poetry has always been a cathartic experience for me and I have had a couple of poems printed. I love reading Welsh poets and recommend Songs of Love and War, Afghan Women’s poetry because they are beautiful, engaging, short poems.

John Mole

My most recent collections for adults are Counting the Chimes: New and Selected Poems, 1975-1983 and The Other Day. For children, This is the Blackbird (shortlisted for the 2008 CLPE Award). All published by Peterloo. A small chapbook collection, The Bone in her Leg is forthcoming from the Happy Dragons Press. I'm also President of Ver Poets and the Toddington Poetry Society.

Hilary Elfick

My 11th book has just been published. I read regularly in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. An Ordinary Storm, based on The Tempest, and placing it in Polynesia, has twice been performed in Dunedin at the invitation of The University of Otago. I've read on radio in several countries. At my high school, whenever working in the library, I’d drop everything to read poetry. I especially remember discovering Edward Thomas.

Ann-Marie Inman

I live in Quedgeley in Gloucester & I’m enjoying writing poetry & excited to see where this adventure will take me in life. I started learning about poetry with a great English teacher Mr Pile, in year 10 & 11. I’ve been lucky to get into 13 Poetry Anthologies so far by United Press Ltd and I really hope I will manage to have my own poetry collections published in the future.

Shilla Mutamba

I had a few poems published in my High School Newspapers and magazines as well as in other publications in Zimbabwe. I had a couple of poems published in the Zimbabwe Women Writers’ Anthology (1994) and also in Tsotso Magazine of New Writing (Zimbabwe). Recently, my poems have appeared in the Loughborough Echo. A few have also made their way into a number of journals, UK anthologies etc. www.authorsden.com/shillamutamba.

Sean O'Brien

Poetry Society Vice President, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. The Drowned Book (Picador, 2007), was awarded the Forward and T S Eliot Prizes. Cousin Coat: Selected Poems 1976-2001 was published in 2002 and a version of Dante’s Inferno, 2006. My plays are published in the Methuen Modern Drama series, and my fiction includes a collection of short stories, The Silence Room (Comma Press, 2008), and a novel, Afterlife (Picador, 2009).

Adekoya Oluseyi Adewale

Born in Nigeria, I am the author of Blossoming Rose on the Pavement. My poems have been published in several magazines, journals and internet sites. Apart from being a poet, I am a motivational speaker, copywriter and a songwriter. I am very impressed with the Society because it’s well structured and gives unlimited opportunities to its members.

Joy Howard

My poems appeared in several anthologies in the ‘80s then just as I was starting to think about a collection, I moved away from London and got engrossed in my career. Poetry took much more of a back seat until retirement, then came back with a wham. Have recently been short and long listed in several competitions and have also managed a prize. I am now publishing www.greyhenpress.com as well as writing.

Moniza Alvi

I was born in Pakistan and came to England when I was a few months old. Peacock Luggage, with Peter Daniels, was published in 1991. My other collections are The Country at My Shoulder (1993), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award; A Bowl of Warm Air (1996); Carrying My Wife (2000); Souls (2002); and How the Stone Found its Voice (2005). Split World: Poems 1990-2005 and Europa came out in 2008 - the latter nominated for the 2008 T.S. Eliot Prize. In 2002 I received a Cholmondeley Award.

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