Matthew Hollis

Last updated

Matthew Hollis
Born1971 (age 5253)
Norwich, England
Occupation
  • Author
  • editor
  • professor
  • poet
Alma mater University of Edinburgh; University of York
Notable works Now All Roads Lead to France (2011)
Parents Patricia Hollis and Martin Hollis

Matthew Hollis (born 1971) is an English author, editor, professor, and poet, currently living in London, England. [1]

Contents

Career and background

The late Edward Thomas - for whom Hollis has been a biographer and editor, and received inspiration from Edward Thomas.jpg
The late Edward Thomas - for whom Hollis has been a biographer and editor, and received inspiration from

He was born in Norwich, England, the son of politician Patricia Hollis and academic Martin Hollis. [2] He has studied at the universities of Edinburgh and York. He presently lives in London, England, writing as well as serving as a tutor for the London Poetry School and working as an editor at Faber and Faber. He is a member of the international educational and cultural enhancement organisation the British Council, taking part in the Arts Council's "First Lines" programme in 2001. [1]

Hollis has published a variety of written works. After its shortlisting for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, his first full-length collection Ground Water (Bloodaxe Books, 2004) was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award (the first time for a poetry book) and for the Whitbread Poetry Award; Ground Water was also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Hollis is perhaps best known for the 2011 non-fiction book Now All Roads Lead to France , a critically acclaimed (praise appearing in The Guardian , [3] The Independent , [4] The Wall Street Journal , [5] and others) biography of seminal English poet Edward Thomas. The work won the 2011 H. W. Fisher Best First Biography Prize, as well as the 2011 Costa Book Award for "Best Biography". [1] The judges for the latter commented: "Dramatic and engrossing. A brilliant biography that moved us all." [6]

His most recent work is Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem, published on 13 October 2022 by Faber and Faber [7] , which, according to its sleeve notes, has been made book of the year by the Sunday Times, the New Statesman and the Financial Times.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. S. Eliot</span> US-born British poet (1888–1965)

Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. He is considered to be one of the 20th century's greatest poets, as well as a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry. His use of language, writing style, and verse structure reinvigorated English poetry. He is also noted for his critical essays, which often reevaluated long-held cultural beliefs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Thomas (poet)</span> British poet and novelist (1878-1917)

Philip Edward Thomas was a British writer of poetry and prose. He is sometimes considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. He only started writing poetry at the age of 36, but by that time he had already been a prolific critic, biographer, nature writer and travel writer for two decades. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seamus Heaney</span> Irish writer and translator (1939–2013)

Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age". Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Ann Duffy</span> Scottish poet and playwright (born 1955)

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, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Motion</span> English poet and writer (born 1952)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glyn Maxwell</span> British writer

Glyn Maxwell is a British poet, playwright, novelist, librettist, and lecturer.

The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize for poetry awarded by the T. S. Eliot Foundation. For many years it was awarded by the Eliots' Poetry Book Society (UK) to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in honour of its founding poet, T. S. Eliot. Since its inception, the prize money was donated by Eliot's widow, Mrs Valerie Eliot and more recently it has been given by the T. S. Eliot Estate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jo Shapcott</span> English poet

Jo Shapcott FRSL is an English poet, editor and lecturer who has won the National Poetry Competition, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Costa Book of the Year Award, a Forward Poetry Prize and the Cholmondeley Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Oswald</span> British poet

Alice Priscilla Lyle Oswald is a British poet from Reading, Berkshire. Her work won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002 and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. In September 2017, she was named as BBC Radio 4's second Poet-in-Residence, succeeding Daljit Nagra. From 1 October 2019 until 30 September 2023, she was the Oxford Professor of Poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Kay</span> Scottish poet, novelist and non-fiction writer (born 1961)

Jacqueline Margaret Kay,, is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works Other Lovers (1993), Trumpet (1998) and Red Dust Road (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Somerset Maugham Award in 1994, the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998 and the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year Award in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Burnside</span> Scottish writer

John Burnside FRSL FRSE is a Scottish writer. He is one of only three poets to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same book. In 2023 he won the David Cohen Prize.

Paul Farley FRSL is a British poet, writer and broadcaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Copus</span> British poet, biographer and childrens writer

Julia Copus FRSL is a British poet, biographer and children's writer.

Michael Donaghy was a New York City poet and musician, who lived in London from 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daljit Nagra</span> British poet (born 1966)

Daljit Nagra is a British poet whose debut collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover! – a title alluding to W. H. Auden's Look, Stranger!, D. H. Lawrence's Look! We Have Come Through! and by epigraph also to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" – was published by Faber in February 2007. Nagra's poems relate to the experience of Indians born in the UK, and often employ language that imitates the English spoken by Indian immigrants whose first language is Punjabi, which some have termed "Punglish". He currently works part-time at JFS School in Kenton, London, and visits schools, universities and festivals where he performs his work. He was appointed chair of the Royal Society of Literature in November 2020. He is a professor of creative writing at Brunel University London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lavinia Greenlaw</span> English poet and novelist (born 1962)

Lavinia Elaine Greenlaw is an English poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. She won the Prix du Premier Roman with her first novel and her poetry has been shortlisted for awards that include the T. S. Eliot Prize, Forward Prize and Whitbread Poetry Prize. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Poetry Award for A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde. Greenlaw currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Sampson</span> British poet and writer

Fiona Ruth Sampson, is a British poet and writer. She is published in thirty-seven languages and has received a number of national and international awards for her writing. A former musician, Sampson has written on the links between music and poetry, and her work has been set to music by several composers. She has received several prizes for her literary biographies and poetry, notably a MBE for services to literature in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kae Tempest</span> English poet, musical artist, novelist and playwright

Kae Tempest is an English spoken word performer, poet, recording artist, novelist and playwright.

<i>Now All Roads Lead to France</i> 2011 biography of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis

Now All Roads Lead To France is a 2011 non-fiction book by Matthew Hollis. It details the life of Edward Thomas, a seminal poet in the history of British literature known for his work exploring the notions of disconnection and unsettledness. Reviews praising the book ran in publications such as The Guardian, The Independent, and The Wall Street Journal. The book won the 2011 Costa Book Award for 'Best Biography', with the judges calling it "brilliant", as well as the 2011 H. W. Fisher Best First Biography Prize.

"Adlestrop" is a poem by Edward Thomas. It is based on a railway journey Thomas took on 24 June 1914, during which his train briefly stopped at the now-closed station in the Gloucestershire village of Adlestrop.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Matthew Hollis". British Council Literature. British Council . Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  2. Morris, Benjamin (2005). "Matthew Hollis interview". Textualities. Retrieved 2 November 2012.
  3. Macfarlane, Robert (5 August 2011). "Now All Roads Lead to France by Matthew Hollis – review". The Guardian . Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  4. O'Brien, Sean (29 July 2011). "Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  5. Massie, Allan (26 October 2012). "Book Review: Now All Roads Lead to France". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  6. "Costa book awards winners 2011 – in pictures". The Guardian . 4 January 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  7. "The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem". Faber and Faber. 13 October 2022. Retrieved 7 October 2022.