Michael Schmidt (poet)

Michael Schmidt OBE FRSL (born 2 March 1947) is a Mexican-British poet, author, scholar and publisher.

Biography

Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Schmidt studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford University. He is currently Professor of Poetry at Glasgow University, where he is convener of the Creative Writing M.Litt programme. He is founder (1969) and editorial and managing director of Carcanet Press and a founder (1973) and general editor of PN Review. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he received an OBE in 2006 for services to poetry. His literary career has been described as having "a strong sense of internationalism and cultural ‘connectedness’". Schmidt refers to himself in his book Lives of the Poets as "an Anglophone Mexican publisher".

Selected bibliography

Poetry

• It Was My Tree (Anvil, 1970)
• Bedlam and the Oak Wood (Carcanet, 1970)
• Desert of the Lions (Carcanet, 1972)
• My Brother Gloucester (Carcanet, 1976)
• A Change of Affairs (Anvil, 1978)
• The Love of Strangers - Poetry Book Society Special Commendation (Century Hutchinson, 1989)
• Selected Poems, 1972-1997 - Poetry Book Society Special Commendation (Smith/Doorstop, 1997)
• The Resurrection of the Body (USA: Sheep Meadow; Smith/Doorstop, 2007)

Fiction

• The Colonist - Los Angeles Times book award (Muller/Hutchinson, 1983; published in USA as Green Island, Vanguard 1984, Dell, 1985)
• The Dresden Gate (Century Hutchinson, 1988; Vanguard, 1989)

Non-fiction

• The Novel: A Biography (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014)

Criticism

• The Great Modern Poets(inc audio excerpts) Quercus Poetry 2006 ISBN 9780857382467
• Reading Modern Poetry (Routledge, London, 1989) ISBN 0-415-01568-5
• Lives of the Poets (Phoenix, 1998) ISBN 978-0-7538-0745-3
• The Story of Poetry: From Cædmon to Caxton; From Skelton to Dryden; From Pope to Burns (three volumes) (2001–2006)
• The First Poets: Lives of the Ancient Greek Poets (2004)

Anthologies

• The Harvill Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry in English (1999, 2005) (editor)
• A Calendar of Modern Poetry (PN Review 100, 1994)

External links

• Michael Schmidt's website
• Biography on Carcanet Press
• Profile on Contemporary Writers
• "What, How Well, Why?"—Schmidt's Lecture from StAnza, Scotland's annual poetry festival
• Podcast Interview with Schmidt by André Naffis-Sahely