A freelance writer ever since he won the Gregory Award in 1974, Roger Garfitt has been Poetry Critic of London Magazine, Editor of Poetry Review, Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia, and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Swansea University. He runs a Poetry Masterclass for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall. He was married to Frances Horovitz, whose Collected Poems he edited for Bloodaxe after her early death from cancer. From 1985 to 1992 he spent much of his time in Colombia and his Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2000) includes despatches that first appeared in Granta and London Review of Books. Now remarried and living in the Shropshire Hills, he performs Poetry & Jazz with Nikki Iles and the John Williams Octet. In All My Holy Mountain, their celebration of the life and work of Mary Webb, is available on CD from www.jazzcds.co.uk. His memoir, The Horseman’s Word (Jonathan Cape, 2011), was shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley Prize. His collections from Carcanet include Given Ground (1989), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and The Action (2019).
