Matthew Caley is a tutor/mentor for the Poetry School and has also recently taught poetry at the University of St Andrews, the University of Winchester and Royal Holloway University, London. His first collection, Thirst (Slow Dancer, 1999), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He has published six more since, four with Bloodaxe, Apparently (2010), Rake (2016), Trawlerman’s Turquoise (2019) and To Abandon Wizardry (2023). His work has featured in many anthologies, including Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2010), Poems of the Decade (Forward Worldwide, 2011), The Picador Book of Love Poems (Picador, 2011), Pestilence (Lapwing, Belfast, 2020) and Divining Dante (Recent Work Press, 2021). Prophecy Is Easy, a pamphlet of very loose versions from French twentieth century poets, was published by Blueprint in 2021. He’s read his work from StAnza in Fife – where he gave the StAnza Lecture 2020 – to the Globe Theatre, London; from Galway to the Czech Republic, to Novi Sad, Serbia. He lives in London with the Czech-born artist Pavla Alchin.
Author photo: Pavla Alchin
