Michael Schmidt was born in Mexico in 1947. He studied at Harvard
and at Wadham
College, Oxford. He is Professor of Poetry at Glasgow
University, where he is convenor of the Creative Writing Programme.
He is a founder (1969) and editorial and managing director of Carcanet Press Limited, and a founder (1972) and general editor of PN Review. An anthologist, translator, critic and literary historian, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and received an O.B.E. in 2006 for services to poetry.
'Vibrant, radiant... steeped in modernist tradition (Yeats and Eliot) and questingly new... a passionate discourse that is at once earthy and numinous' – John Ashbery
‘Schmidt is a stringent poet, never shy of painful truth’ – Helen Dunmore, The Observer
Read a poem from Michael Schmidt's Collected Poems here.
and internationally as a painter.
Michael McCarthy grew up on a farm in West Cork, Ireland. His first poetry collection
Birds’ Nests and Other Poems
won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. His children’s books have been
translated into seventeen languages. He works as a priest in North
Yorkshire.
'At the Races' was the overall winner of the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition.
'What I love about Michael’s poetry is the extraordinary specific detail, the pictures painted by the juxtaposition of words. It sings with a poetic intelligence. It moves me: the people, the memories, the vividness of detail.' — Sinead Cusack
Read a poem from At the Races here.
Read a poem from Mike Di Placido's Theatre of Dreams here.
*First-stage winner in the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition*
Read a poem from Sally Goldsmith's Singer here.
*First-stage winner in the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition*
Read a poem from Carole Bromley's Skylight here.
*First-stage winner in the 2008 Book & Pamphlet Competition*
Read a sample poem from Anna Woodford's Party Piece here.
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
