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I got into poetry at school. I remember one hot sweaty day my English teacher saying that kind of weather always made her think of murder. Then she handed out Robert Browning’s ‘Porphyria’s Lover’. I loved it! A less happy school memory of poetry is reciting Charles Causley’s ‘Timothy Winters’ at a primary school harvest supper …

I took a fairly predictable teenage route into poetry, discovering Dylan Thomas and falling under his spell. I had an English teacher at high school who was a keen poetry reader, and she ignited my interest in writing it. She led me to Michael Longley, still a favourite. As a poet I prefer lyric poetry. …

I had a succession of very engaging English teachers. For ‘A’ level, our texts included Robert Lowell and Donne, both of whom I really enjoyed. At the same time, one of my brothers was studying American Studies at university and had a module on American poetry, which encompassed William Carlos Williams and the Beats, and he went on to do an MA in …

I got into poetry by accident. I remember writing some sort of rhyming thing around the age of five. It was based on a song called ‘Bobby Bingo’. I wrote it in pink felt tip in my gran’s outhouse while sitting on felt tiles. After that I was in. At secondary school we read Ted …

It’s hard to remember a time when poetry didn’t delight me. I’m enchanted by the possibilities of language. Poetry seems to be the best way of exploring, and occasionally expanding, these. I like poetry which speaks honestly about our relationship with the landscapes which we create and inhabit, so Clare, Thomas, Oswald, Machado, Lorca, Heaney. I’ve lived in the country …

While studying Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London I regularly performed on the spoken word circuit in London, competed in poetry slams, and even reached the UK Poetry Slam final in 2015. Winning really wasn’t important, which is good, because I didn’t. But I felt galvanised by the type of people doing what …

I like poetry that keeps the lid on AND lets the pig out. My favourite single line of poetry is: “Thus, though we cannot make our sun / stand still, yet we will make him run” — Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress. Or “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” from Robert Frost’s …

I’ve enjoyed poetry since studying it at school — the War Poets and Elizabeth Jennings left a particular impression — but it became far more central to my life in 2009 when my six month old son died after six operations in three hospitals. In the fight between poetry, religion, and alcoholism, poetry won on points. And from …

I found poetry through the Open University creative writing courses which I studied after retirement from teaching. My tutor recommended I pursue the poetry option for the advanced writing course, and I followed this with a Masters (distinction) at Manchester Metropolitan University. It’s a passion now, a way of daily life, and has brought me …

I loved it studying English at school. I remember being cast as First Voice in Under Milk Wood in the school play when I was about twelve and being mesmerised by the language; then falling completely for Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. I did English at uni, and a relative gave me the Complete TS …