the Poetry kit

 

The Poetry Kit Interviews 2000

Jim Bennett Brian Docherty Katherine Gallagher William Herbert Roddy Lumsden William Oxley Ken Smith

1999 interviews    1998 Interviews


Jim Bennett

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Jim Bennett is a writer, poet and performer who is author of 53 published books. A recent book for children included a compendium of games, and is due to be translated into German and French. As well as writing he works at the University of Liverpool delivering courses in creative writing. His next project is work on a film for a major American film studio.
His most recent collection of poetry is "Drums at New Brighton" a collection of poems on the theme of place. He has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, and is currently working on a collection of poetry about Liverpool.

Brian Docherty

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Brian Docherty has been described as a 'Glasgow-Irish post-Beat poet for the 90's. He lives in North London and is active in the London poetry scene via workshops and events. This interview was conducted in the Royal Festival Hall (South Bank Centre), on Thursday February 24th, 2000.

Katherine Gallagher

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Katherine Gallagher is a widely-published Australian poet resident in London since 1979. She writes for adults and children, and is a poetry tutor for the Open College of the Arts. Recently, she became Blue Nose Education Officer. She also runs a Poetry & Voice workshopat Jacksons Lane, London, N6. She won the 1981 Warana Poetry Prize. Her book, Passengers to the City (Hale & Iremonger, 1985) was shortlisted for the 1986 Australian National Poetry Award. Her next collection, Fish-rings on Water, was published by Forest Books (1989). Her translation of Jean-Jacques Celly's poems, The Sleepwalker with Eyes of Clay, was published by Forest Books in 1994. In 1993, Hearing Eye published her pamphlet, Finding the Prince. Her next collection, Tigers on the Silk Road, will be published by Arc Publications later in 2000 and Salmon Publishing (Ireland) will publish her Selected Poems.

William Herbert

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W.N. Herbert’s last book was The Laurelude (Bloodaxe, 98). Others include Cabaret McGonagall, Forked Tongue, The Testament of the Reverend Thomas Dick and Sharawaggi. He teaches Creative Writing at Lancaster University. He used to be Wordsworth Fellow at Grasmere, and Northern Arts Literary Fellow, among other posts. Recently he was a Wired Poet with TrAce and the Poetry Society. He has also been a New Generation Poet. He is currently editing (with Matthew Hollis) a book of statements about poetry by poets, called Strong Words, which will appear this autumn.


Roddy Lumsden

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Roddy Lumsden's first book Yeah Yeah Yeah (Bloodaxe, 1997) was shortlisted for Forward and Saltire prizes. In 1999, he was "poet-in-residence" to the music industry and co-wrote The Message, a book on poetry and pop music published by the Poetry Society. The Book of Love (Bloodaxe 2000) was PBS Summer Choice and is thus shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. He is a freelance writer and editor, specialising in quizzes and word puzzles.
Poems and sound files and books by Roddy Lumsden are available via www.vitamin-p.co.uk a new website which will be showcasing the work of several well-known British poets.

William Oxley

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William Oxley was born in Manchester. A poet and philosopher, he has also worked as accountant, part-time gardener, and actor. At present he divides his time between London and South Devon. His poems have been widely published throughout the world, in magazines and journals as diverse as Sparrow and The Formalist (USA), The Scotsman, New Statesman, Agenda, Stand, The Independent, The Spectator, and The Observer. He has also read his work on UK and European radio. His most recent books of poetry have been Cardboard Troy (Stride, 1993); Collected Longer Poems (Salzburg University Press, 1994), and The Green Crayon Man (Rockingham Press, 1997). In 1981 the Menard Press published his translations of the poetry of L.S.Senghor (Poems of a Black Orpheus), and in 1996 a volume of his plays was published by the University of Salzburg. A former member of the General Council of the Poetry Society and ex-assistant editor of Acumen. In 1995 he edited the anthology Completing The Picture for Stride. The founder of the Long Poem Group, he co-edits its newsletter; and in 1999 his autobiography No Accounting for Paradise (Rockingham Press) appeared.
He is currently poet-in-residence for Torbay in Devon.

Ken Smith

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Ken Smith was born in 1938 in Rudston, East Yorkshire, the son of an itinerant farm labourer. He has worked in Britain and in America as a teacher, freelance writer, barman, magazine editor, potato picker and BBC reader, and has held writing fellowships at Leeds University, Kingston Polytechnic, and Clark University and Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. From 1985 to 1987 he was writer-in-residence at Wormwood Scrubs prison, London. He lives in the east-end of London.