W.N. [Bill] Herbert is a highly versatile poet who writes both in
English and Scots. Born in Dundee, he established his reputation
with two English/Scots collections from Bloodaxe, Forked Tongue
(1994) and Cabaret McGonagall (1996). These were followed by The
Laurelude (1998), The Big Bumper Book of Troy (2002), Bad Shaman
Blues (2006), Omnesia (2013) and The Wreck of the Fathership
(2020). He has also published a critical study, To Circumjack
MacDiarmid (OUP, 1992) drawn from his PhD research. His practical
guide Writing Poetry was published by Routledge in 2010. He
co-edited Strong Words: modern poets on modern poetry (Bloodaxe
Books, 2000) with Matthew Hollis, and Jade Ladder: Contemporary
Chinese Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2012) with Yang Lian. Bill Herbert
is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Newcastle University
and lives in a lighthouse overlooking the River Tyne at North
Shields. He was Dundee's inaugural Makar from 2013 to 2018. Twice
shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, his collections have also
been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, McVities Prize, Saltire
Awards and Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award. Four
are Poetry Book Society Recommendations. In 2014 he was awarded a
Cholmondeley Prize for his poetry, and an honorary doctorate from
Dundee University. In 2015 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society
of Literature.
Matthew Hollis was born in 1971 in Norwich, and now lives in
London. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1999. He is co-editor of
101 Poems Against War (Faber, 2003) and Strong Words: Modern Poets
on Modern Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2000), and editor of the Selected
Poems of Edward Thomas (Faber, 2011). He is Poetry Editor at Faber
& Faber. 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. His biography, Now All Roads Lead to France: The
Last Years of Edward Thomas (Faber, 2011), won the Costa Biography
Award, the H.W. Fisher Biography Award and a Royal Society of
Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, and was BBC Radio 4 Book
of the Week and Sunday Times Biography of the Year. In 2016 he
published two limited letterpress and hand-made pamphlets, Stones
(Incline Press) and East (Clutag Press).
Utterly compelling… Strong Words brings together a diverse
collection of essential commentaries in a single volume.
*BBC Radio 3 Book of the Month*
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