Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a British poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, resigning in 2019. She is the first woman, the first Scottish-born poet and the first known LGBT poet to hold the position.
David Gascoyne was an English poet associated with the Surrealist movement, in particular the British Surrealist Group. Additionally he translated work by French surrealist poets.
"The British Poetry Revival" is the general name given to a loose poetry movement in Britain that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The revival was a modernist-inspired reaction to the Movement's more conservative approach to British poetry. The poets included an older generation - Bob Cobbing, Paula Claire, Tom Raworth, Eric Mottram, Jeff Nuttall, Andrew Crozier, Lee Harwood, Allen Fisher, Iain Sinclair—and a younger generation: Paul Buck, Bill Griffiths, John Hall, John James, Gilbert Adair, Lawrence Upton, Peter Finch, Ulli Freer, Ken Edwards, Robert Gavin Hampson, Gavin Selerie, Frances Presley, Elaine Randell, Robert Sheppard, Adrian Clarke, Clive Fencott, Maggie O'Sullivan, Cris Cheek, Tony Lopez and Denise Riley.
Andrew Thomas Knights Crozier was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival.
Iain Sinclair FRSL is a Welsh writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, most recently within the influences of psychogeography.
The New British Poetry 1968-88 was a poetry anthology from 1988, jointly edited by Gillian Allnutt, Fred D'Aguiar, Ken Edwards and Eric Mottram, respectively concerned with feminist, Black British, younger experimental and British poetry revival poets. The book's general editor was John Muckle, founder of the Paladin Poetry Series. He attempted to challenge what many saw as a narrowly defined 'mainstream' by creating a book around different strands in radical poetry and four editors who might not otherwise have worked together: "Their differences, both in the shape they have given their selections and in their introductory remarks, make this a many-sided, exciting, unpredictable - and no doubt contentious book." The anthology's multicultural and counter-cultural stance gave it a strong anti-Thatcherite flavour. The book was widely if critically reviewed and went on to influence a number of subsequent anthologies of British poetry.
Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain, an anthology of poetry, was edited by Michael Horovitz and published by Penguin Books in 1969. According to Martin Booth it was "virtually a manifesto of New Departures doctrine and dogma".
Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970 is a poetry anthology edited by Richard Caddel and Peter Quartermain, and published in 1999 by Wesleyan University Press. According to the Introduction
Modern Scottish Poetry: An Anthology of the Scottish Renaissance 1920-1945 was a poetry anthology edited by Maurice Lindsay, and published in 1946 by Faber and Faber.
Penguin Modern Poets was a series of 27 poetry books published by Penguin Books in the 1960s and 1970s, each containing work by three contemporary poets. The series was begun in 1962 and published an average of two volumes per year throughout the 1960s. Each volume was stated to be "an attempt to introduce contemporary poetry to the general reader". The series added up to a substantial survey of English-language poetry of the time.
Barry MacSweeney was an English poet and journalist. His organizing work contributed to the British Poetry Revival.
The Golden Treasury of Scottish Poetry was edited by Hugh MacDiarmid, and published in 1940. From the introduction:
Denise Riley is an English poet and philosopher.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The prizes do this by identifying and honouring talent: collections published in the UK and Ireland over the course of the previous year are eligible, as are single poems nominated by journal editors or prize organisers. Each year, works shortlisted for the prizes – plus those highly commended by the judges – are collected in the Forward Book of Poetry.
The Mays Literary Anthology is an annual anthology of new writing by students from the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.
The Cholmondeley Awards are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has been made to four poets each year, to the total value of £8000.
Tears in the Fence is a triannual British literary journal edited by David Caddy. It has been characterized as "a forward-looking magazine that is not afraid to take risks.... [and that] represents the cutting edge of modern poetry."
Adrian Clarke is a contemporary British poet. His collections include Skeleton Sonnets, Former Haunts, Possession: Poems 1996-2006, and Eurochants.
Drew Milne is a contemporary British poet and academic.
Paladin Poetry was a series of paperback books published by Grafton Books under its Paladin imprint, intended to bring modernist and radical poetry before a wider audience. Its founding anthology The New British Poetry 1968-88 attempted to revive the fortunes of the modernist tradition, to correct the gender imbalance of previous anthologies and to bring a new generation of ‘Black British’ poets to prominence. The series was originally edited by writer John Muckle, then Grafton’s editorial copywriter (1985–88), and later by the London writer Iain Sinclair. Many of the Paladin Poetry books were paperback originals. The entire poetry series was pulped within months of the publication of its last titles. However, it did affect poetry readers and had a considerable influence on the output of other poetry publishers, such as Bloodaxe, Penguin, Carcanet and Salt.
