List Of Writers

HART, DAVID

42 All Saints Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham B14 7LL
Tel: (0121) 443 2495
Email: davidhart.poetrybham@lineone.net and djhart11@mac.com
Blogger site: http://davidhartbirminghampoet.blogspot.com/

Poet. Born and grew up in Aberystwyth. Student in London and Wells. Anglican priest: Curate of St Michael’s Highgate, London 1967–69. Co-founder and co-editor of the Catonsville Roadrunner, London. Anglican guild chaplain, Birmingham University 1969-71. Thereafter, Birmingham Post drama critic, TEFL pt tutor, wrote for pub theatre etc. Won the Play for Wales competition 197?  Play: Mother says on Radio 4. Early 1980s-1997 Arts, Drama and Literature Officer at West Midlands Arts; freelance since 1997.

Created the Hay Festival Poetry Squantum 1990. First prize in National Poetry Competition 1994, runner-up 1996, 2nd in 2003. Birmingham Poet Laureate 1997-98. Poet in Residence Worcester Cathedral, 1998-99. Poet in Residence for South Birmingham Mental Health NHS Trust 1999-2000. Commissioned 50 ’Poems for Waiting Rooms’, 2000 (for Rogan Wolf’s POEMS FOR THE WAITING ROOM).

Arts Council Poetry Fellow at University of Warwick 2001-02 and Honorary Teaching Fellow there from 2002. Tutor in Lifelong Learning, Birmingham University. Poet in Residence Heartlands General Hospital, Birmingham from 2002. Short residency with Eli ap Hywel at Bronglais Hospital, Aberystwyth. Has run workshops for a variety of groups including people with mental health problems, teachers and psychotherapists, as well as arts centre evening courses. Commissions have included the Royal Mail (with Christmas stamps 2000), Ikon Gallery Birmingham, Sean Henry (in response to his sculpture), Bleddfa Centre (Bardsey Island poem). City of Birmingham Choir, Symphony Hall, B’ham. Mappa Mundi libretto with music by David Ventura, ‘Song of the Mapmaker’, Hereford Cathedral 1999 & CD; poems in response to Georges Rouault’s Miserere et Guerre commissioned by and exhibited at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, 2002.

Poems widely published in magazines including Poetry Wales and New Welsh Review, in anthologies including the Forward anthologies of 1996, 1997, 2000, Scanning the Century (ed.Peter Forbes), Hand in Hand & Out of Fashion, Answering Back (all ed.Carol Ann Duffy), The Thunder Mutters (ed.Alice Oswald). Created and edited for the West Midlands area: People to People magazine (1995-97) and more personally: Poetry Listing (5 issues to 1993). David is a Member of Academi.

Selected Publications:
From Argument to Flight (Wood Wind Publications, 1991)
Setting the Poem to Words (Five Seasons Press, 1998)
Version of the Ancient Chinese Nine Songs (Flarestack, 1998)
In the Men’s Hut: Worcester Cathedral residency poems (Flarestack, 2000)
Crag Inspector: A Poem of Bardsey Island (draft: Redlake Press, 2000) (then Five Seasons Press, 2002)
Work, the Work (Flarestack, 2005)
Running Out (Five Seasons, 2006): (269 pages, poems from residencies, from a week in Poland, a long poem in the voice of Beethoven, in response to Rilke, the Chinese Nine Songs, Thorpeness poems and photos, ‘Song of the mapmaker’ and a Kafka libretto; etc, plus short poems)

Contributed to:
Border Country: Poems in Process - A Documentary Record of the 1st Poetry Squantum at the Hay-on-Wye Festival of Literature (convenor & editor) (Wood Wind Publications, 1991)
Needs Be: A Poetry Book of Obsessions (editor) (Farestack, 1998)
Mr. Henderson to Mrs.Haut-Sinclair: The Runners Up from the New County Poetry Pamphlet Competition (editor) (Flarestack, 1998)
The Rules of Fun, Keeping a Record, Breathing other Air (poems by pupils and teachers) (editor) (Birmingham LEA, 1999-2001); PeggyNice & TrampyMan (co-editor) (Birmingham LEA, 2000)
Seat and Suitcase Poems (contributor) (Flarestack, 2000)
Freedom Rules: New Forms for the Making of Poems (editor) (Flarestack, 2004)
Is a Religious Poem Possible in the Early 21st Century? (editor) (Flarestack, 2004)
Charles Johnson’s The Feather-list Extracts (editor) (Five Seasons Press, 2005)



Eligible Writers on Tour subjects offered:
1. Read/ discuss own poetry
2. Poetry and therapy workshops (working on and questioning)
3. Spirituality and poetry workshops (ditto)
4. General poetry workshops

AGE RANGE: Adults. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: Vegetarian; non-car-driver