Peter Bennet

Peter Bennet was born in Staffordshire in 1942. He went as a scholarship boy to King’s School Macclesfield, and then to Manchester College of Art and Design, where he was influenced by the painter Norman Adams and his wife, the poet Anna Adams. He taught in secondary and further education, including work with redundant steelworkers following the closure of Consett Steel Works, and spent sixteen years as Tutor Organiser for Northumberland with the Workers’ Educational Association. He gave up painting for writing in 1980 and did a part-time MA at Newcastle University, including a study of W.S.Graham.

He has published six books of poetry and received major awards from Arts Council England and New Writing North. He has been a prizewinner in the National and the Arvon International Poetry Competitions, and the Basil Bunting Awards. The Glass Swarm was a Poetry Book Society Choice in 2008, and was short-listed for the T.S.Eliot Prize.

After living for thirty-three years near the Wild Hills o’Wanney in Northumberland, in a remote cottage associated with the ballad writer James Armstrong, author of Wannie Blossoms, he now lives happily in Whitley Bay. His next book, Border, is due from Bloodaxe. [ http://abegailmorley.wordpress.com/20... ]