'The Power of the Poetic Word': a poetry reading by Michael Symmons Roberts

The reading is given in conjunction with the conference, 'The Power of the Word: Poetry, Theology and Life'.

Michael was born in 1963 in Preston, Lancashire and read Philosophy & Theology at Oxford. He trained as a newspaper journalist before joining the BBC as a radio producer, then as a documentary filmmaker. He was Executive Producer and Head of Development for BBC Religion & Ethics before leaving the BBC to focus on writing. His 4th book of poetry – Corpus – was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize and the Griffin International Prize. He has previously received the Society of Authors’ Gregory Award for British poets under 30, 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, song cycles, music theatre works and a new opera for the Welsh National Opera – The Sacrifice – which won the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Award. His work for radio includes 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 first novel – Patrick’s Alphabet – was published by Jonathan Cape in 2006, and his second – Breath – in 2008. He is a trustee of the Arvon Foundation, and Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

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