Introduction

Born in London, I am a poet, critic and Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University. Educated at the University of York to post-graduate level, I have produced six collections of poetry with a seventh and an eighth due between now and July 2011—Priest Skear, a half collection which turns the drowning of the twenty-three Chinese cocklepickers in Morecambe Bay in 2004 into a sort of political allegory; and The Storm House, a book length elegy for my brother who died young and in highly mysterious circumstances, due from Carcanet. My third collection Competing with the Piano Tuner was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation and longlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize in 1998 and my fourth—To the God of Rain— a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Spring 2003. I was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2002. I have reviewed poetry for such journals as The Independent, The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, Poetry Review and PN Review and have recently been the Poet-in-Residence at The Guardian. The Blood Choir, my fifth collection, won an Arts Council England Writer’s Award as a collection-in-progress in 2003, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Summer 2006 and shortlisted for the 2006 TS Eliot Prize. I’ve performed my work on BBC Radio Three and BBC Radio Four and have read at many major festivals: I read at the Ars Interpres Festival, Stockholm, in 2007, and was visiting poet at the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, in 2008. I have published poems widely on both sides of the Atlantic and love to travel, having travelled to India, Nepal, Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Thailand, Israel, North America, Canada, Mauritius, Morocco, amongst many other places, and currently live in Bath with my wife, Miranda Liardet, who also loves to travel. My son Joe Liardet is largely responsible for the design and inauguration of this wonderful website.