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https://webcdn.mmu.ac.uk/profiles/img/profile-images/Michael-Symmons-Roberts-resize-100x100-5305e0ea30ada.jpg
I’m a poet.
I've published six collections of poetry, but I also work in a range of related areas. I’m a regular broadcaster on BBC Radios 3 and 4 and TV, a radio dramatist and opera librettist. I’ve also written novels and nonfiction. At the heart of it all is poetry, so I’m interested in supervising research projects on modern and contemporary poetry (20th and 21st Century), poetry and theology, poetry and science, poetry and music, poetry and broadcast.
I teach online and campus poetry workshops and literature courses, and supervise PhD students.
As a poet, and Professor of Poetry, my work at MMU is about nurturing and developing writers and readers of poetry. To help students develop their skill, understanding and confidence is very rewarding, and many of them go on to achieve publication and a readership for their own poetry beyond MMU.
Philosophy & Theology at Oxford University.
Michael Symmons Roberts' 6th book of poetry - 'Drysalter' - won the 2013 Forward Prize and the Costa Poetry Award, and it was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. His 4th book - ‘Corpus' - was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was also shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize, and the Griffin International Prize. He has previously received the Society of Authors' Gregory Award, the K Blundell Trust Award, and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for his 2001 collection ‘Burning Babylon'.
His continuing collaboration with composer James MacMillan has led to two BBC Proms choral commissions, a song cycle and several operas including 'The Sacrifice' for the Welsh National Opera which won the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for opera.
His work for radio includes many dramas, features and commissioned poems including ‘A Fearful Symmetry' - for Radio 4 - which won the Sandford St Martin Prize, and ‘Last Words' commissioned by Radio 4 to mark the first anniversary of 9/11. His dramas have won a Clarion Award (for 'Soldiers in the Sun' on Radio 3) and a shortlisting for Best Single Drama of the Year in 2013 (for 'The Sleeper' on Radio 4) at the BBC Audio Drama Awards.
His non-fiction book (co-written with Paul Farley) 'Edgelands' won the Foyles Book of Ideas Award in 2011 and the Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction. It was also shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and broadcast on Radio 4 as 'Book of the Week'.
He has published two novels. The first - ‘Patrick's Alphabet' - was published by Jonathan Cape in 2006, and the second - 'Breath' - (also published by Cape) in 2008.
He read Philosophy & Theology at Oxford University, before working as a radio and TV documentary maker for the BBC, where he was Series Producer of the BBC1 documentary series ‘Everyman', and Head of Development for BBC Religion & Ethics.
Creative Writing - poetry.
Creative writing - poetry.
MS. Roberts (2021). Ransom. Random House.
MS. Roberts (2017). Mancunia. Random House.
MS. Roberts, P. Farley (2017). Deaths of the Poets. Random House.
MS. Roberts (2016). Selected Poems. Random House.
MS. Roberts (2013). Drysalter. Jonathan Cape.
MS. Roberts (2011). Edgelands. Jonathan Cape.
MS. Roberts (2010). Patrick's Alphabet. Random House.
MS. Roberts (2008). Breath. Jonathan Cape.
MS. Roberts (2008). The half healed.
MS. Roberts (2004). Corpus.
MS. Roberts (2001). Burning Babylon.
MS. Roberts (1996). Raising Sparks. Random House.
MS. Roberts (1993). Soft Keys. Random House.
MS. Roberts (2013). Auden and Post-war Opera. 9780521196574, pp.246-254.
MS. Roberts (2011). The cost of Grace. Poetry Review. 101(1), pp.54-62.
MS. Roberts (2008). Poetry in a post-secular age. Poetry Review. 98(4), pp.69-75.
MS. Roberts (2021). Breath—As Subject, in Form, in Performance: An Interview with Michael Symmons Roberts. In: The Life of Breath in Literature, Culture and Medicine. Springer International Publishing, pp.507-526.
MS. Roberts (2016). The Making of Edgelands. In: English Topographies in Literature and Culture. BRILL, pp.15-24.
MS. Roberts, D. Fuller (2015). The Recovery of Beauty: Arts, Culture, Medicine. C. Saunders, J. Macnaughton, D. Fuller. In: The Recovery of Beauty: Arts, Culture, Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp.129-149.
MS. Roberts, D. Fuller (2015). ‘Raising Sparks’: An Interview with Michael Symmons Roberts. In: The Recovery of Beauty: Arts, Culture, Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp.129-149.
M. Symmons Roberts (2012). The Poet’s Tale. In: Redcrosse: Remaking Religious Poetry for Today’s World. pp.93-104.
E. Fernie, M. Symmons Roberts, J. Shapcott, A. Shanks (2012). Redcrosse: A New Celebration of England and St George. In: Redcrosse: Remaking Religious Poetry for Today’s World. pp.181-199.
MS. Roberts Men Who Sleep in Cars.
Won
Shortlisted