Brotherton Poetry Prize Anthology II

The University of Leeds has a long tradition of engagement with poets. Many of them were members of staff (for instance, Geoffrey Hill), some were students (Jon Silkin, Ken Smith, Tony Harrison, Jeffrey Wainwright, Ian Duhig), others creative writing fellows (James Kirkup, John Heath-Stubbs, Thomas Blackburn, Jon Silkin, Peter Redgrove, David Wright, Pearse Hutchinson and Wole Soyinka among them). The poetry archives in the Brotherton Library are extensive and valuable. The Academy of Cultural Fellows has included Helen Mort, Malika Booker, Vahni Capildeo, Zaffar Kunial and Matt Howard. Its long association with the magazine Stand continues. The Brotherton Poetry Prize is the University's latest expression of commitment to poetry as a living art.

Simon Armitage was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry from 2015 - 2019, and in May 2019 was appointed UK Poet Laureate. He has published twelve full-length award-winning collections, most recently Paper Aeroplane, Selected Poems 1989 - 2014 (Fabers, 2014) and Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic (Faber, 2019). His medieval translations include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl which won the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. He is a broadcaster, playwright, novelist and the author of three best-selling volumes of non-fiction. Simon was made CBE for Services to Poetry in 2015 and in 2018 was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. Malika Booker is a British Caribbean poet. Her poetry collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press, 2013) was longlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre prize (2014). She is published in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017). Malika was the Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at the University of Leeds and is currently a poetry Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Stella Butler was formerly University Librarian and Keeper of the Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds. She chairs the panel for the Designation Scheme of Arts Council England which aims to identify and celebrate collections of outstanding significance held in museums, libraries and archives across England. She has published on the history of science and medicine and on libraries and heritage issues. Zaffar Kunial was born in Birmingham and lives in Hebden Bridge. He published a pamphlet in the Faber New Poets series in 2014 and spent that year as the Wordsworth Trust Poet-in-Residence. He has spoken at numerous literary festivals and in programmes for BBC radio. He won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize for his poem ‘The Word’. His debut collection, Us, was published in 2019. His second full collection, England’s Green, was published in 2023. John Whale is the Director of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Waterloo Teeth and Frieze, both published by Carcanet/Northern House. Waterloo Teeth was shortlisted for the Forward Prize’s Felix Dennis Prize for best first collection. He is editor of the international quarterly magazine Stand. Simon Armitage was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry from 2015 - 2019, and in May 2019 was appointed UK Poet Laureate. He has published twelve full-length award-winning collections, most recently Paper Aeroplane, Selected Poems 1989 - 2014 (Fabers, 2014) and Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic (Faber, 2019). His medieval translations include Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl which won the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. He is a broadcaster, playwright, novelist and the author of three best-selling volumes of non-fiction. Simon was made CBE for Services to Poetry in 2015 and in 2018 was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds.