Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Philip Arthur Larkin was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman.
Dame Carol Ann Duffy [] is a Scottish 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 was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly gay poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.
Simon Robert Armitage is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1863.
Sir Andrew Motion is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work. In 2012, he became President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, taking over from Bill Bryson.
George Elliott Clarke, is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015 and as the 2016–2017 Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work is known largely for its use of a vast range of literary and artistic traditions, its lush physicality and its bold political substance. One of Canada's most illustrious poets, Clarke is also known for chronicling the experience and history of the Black Canadian communities of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that he has coined "Africadia".
Edwin Muir CBE was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and with few stylistic preoccupations.
William Whitehead was an English poet and playwright. He became Poet Laureate in December 1757 after Thomas Gray declined the position.
Henry Treece was a British poet and writer who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works but is mostly remembered as a writer of children's historical novels.
John Cooper Clarke is an English performance poet, who first became famous as a "punk poet" in the late 1970s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he released several albums. Around this time, he performed on stage with several punk and post-punk bands and continues to perform regularly.
"Funeral Blues", or "Stop all the clocks", is a poem by W. H. Auden which first appeared in the 1936 play The Ascent of F6. Auden substantially rewrote the poem several years later as a cabaret song for the singer Hedli Anderson. Both versions were set to music by the composer Benjamin Britten. The second version was first published in 1938 and was titled "Funeral Blues" in Auden's 1940 Another Time. The poem experienced renewed popularity after being read in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), which also led to increased attention on Auden's other work. It has since been cited as one of the most popular modern poems in the United Kingdom.
The Invisible Girls were a British rock band, formed in Salford, Greater Manchester in 1978, to provide a musical backdrop to the recorded output of Salford punk poet John Cooper Clarke. The band's nucleus was Joy Division and New Order producer Martin Hannett and keyboardist Steve Hopkins, with contributions from, amongst others, Pete Shelley of Buzzcocks and Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe. The band also played on the first solo album by Pauline Murray, the eponymous Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls and some singles, and later with Nico for the single "Procession".
Snap, Crackle & Bop is the fourth album by John Cooper Clarke, originally released in 1980. As with Disguise in Love, the album featured The Invisible Girls as the backing band and was produced by Martin Hannett. Original first pressings of the LP included a booklet with the lyrics from John Cooper Clarke's 1978 album Disguise in Love together with photographs and artwork, the booklet was housed in a pocket that formed part of the jacket on the LP cover photograph. The album placed at No. 39 in NME's 1980 Albums of the Year.
Charles Boyle is a British poet and novelist. He also uses the pseudonyms Jack Robinson and Jennie Walker. As Walker, he won the 2008 McKitterick Prize for his novella 24 for 3.
Strumpet is a British television film produced by the BBC and broadcast on 10 July 2001. It was also shown at several international film festivals. It was directed by Danny Boyle, written by Jim Cartwright, and stars Christopher Eccleston, Jenna G and Stephen Walters. The film score was composed by John Murphy.
Evidently... John Cooper Clarke is a 2012 television documentary about the life of the Salford performance poet John Cooper Clarke. It was directed by John Ross and produced by Scotty Clark and was first aired on BBC Four in May 2012 as part of BBC Four and BBC 6 Music's "Punk Britannia" season. It features testimonies from Bill Bailey, Pete Shelley, Paul Farley, Steve Coogan, Mark Radcliffe, Craig Charles, Plan B, Kate Nash, Alex Turner, Miranda Sawyer and Paul Morley; and poems by Clarke including "Things Are Gonna Get Worse", "Evidently Chickentown", "Twat" and "Beasley Street".
Joe Dunthorne is a Welsh novelist, poet and journalist. He made his name with his novel Submarine (2008), made into a film in 2010. His second novel, Wild Abandon (2011), won the RSL Encore Award. A selection of his poems was published in 2010 in the Faber and Faber New Poets series. His first solo collection of poems appeared in 2019.
"The Grave" is a blank verse poem by the Scottish poet Robert Blair. It is the work for which he is primarily renowned. According to Blair, in a letter he wrote to Philip Doddridge, the greater part of the poem was composed before he became a minister, Edinburgh editor and publisher John Johnstone hola stating that it was composed whilst he was still a student, although "probably corrected and amplified by his more matured judgement". The poem, 767 lines long, is an exemplar of what became known as the school of graveyard poetry.
"Beasley Street" is a poem by the English poet John Cooper Clarke. Dealing with poverty in inner-city Salford in the Britain of Margaret Thatcher, Cooper Clarke has said that the poem was inspired by Camp Street in Lower Broughton. It has a relentless theme of squalor and despair:
