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.
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.
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.
Sir Geoffrey William Hill, FRSL was an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation and was called the "greatest living poet in the English language." From 2010 to 2015 he held the position of Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. Following his receiving the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2009 for his Collected Critical Writings, and the publication of Broken Hierarchies , Hill is recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry and criticism in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Carolyn Forché is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work.
Ruth Sophia Padel FRSL FZS is a British poet, novelist and non-fiction author, known for her poetic explorations of migration, both animal and human, and her involvement with classical music, wildlife conservation and Greece, ancient and modern. She is Trustee for conservation charity New Networks for Nature, has served on the board of the Zoological Society of London and was Professor of Poetry at King's College London from 2013 to 2022.
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.
Robert Macfarlane is a British writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Peter Neville Frederick Porter OAM was a British-based Australian poet.
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.
Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer, and a member of the extended Capildeo family that has produced notable Trinidadian politicians and writers.
Robin Robertson is a Scottish poet.
Paul Gerard O'Prey is an academic leader and author who was Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Roehampton, London from 2004 until 2019. In 2019 he was appointed chair of the Edward James Foundation, which owns a large rural estate in the South Downs and runs West Dean College of Arts and Conservation. After working in various senior roles at the University of Bristol, in 2004 O'Prey was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Roehampton in south-west London, where he was also Professor of Modern Literature.
Mary Ann Corinna Howard Sieghart is an English author, journalist, radio presenter and former assistant editor of The Times, where she wrote columns about politics, social affairs and life in general. She has also written a weekly political column in The Independent. Her best-selling book, The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It, was published by Transworld/Doubleday in July 2021.
Sean O'Brien FRSL is a British poet, critic and playwright. Prizes he has won include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only three poets to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems.
Fiona Ruth Sampson, Born 1963 is a British poet, writer, editor, translator and academic who was the first woman editor of Poetry Review since Muriel Spark. She received a MBE for services to literature in 2017.
Neil Francis Jeremy Mendoza, Baron Mendoza, is a British businessman, academic administrator, and member of the House of Lords.
National Poetry Day is a British campaign to promote poetry, including public performances. Annually, on the first Thursday of October, events, readings and performances take place across the UK.
Hannah Mary Rothschild is a British author, businesswoman, philanthropist and documentary filmmaker. In addition to screenplays and journalism, she has published a biography and three novels. She sits on charitable and financial boards. In August 2015, she became the first woman to chair the board of trustees of the National Gallery in London.
Dame Ann Geraldine Limb is a British educationalist, business leader, charity chair and philanthropist. In September 2015, she became the first woman Chair of The Scout Association since the organization was founded by Robert Baden Powell in 1907. Limb also serves as the 789th High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, the first Quaker to hold this office.
