David Morley is a leading British poet, critic, anthologist, editor and ecologist. He has published twenty books, including eleven collections of poetry. His work has been translated into several languages including Arabic. 

His forthcoming collection of poems from Carcanet will be titled Enchantment. Poems from the new book have recently been finding their way into the pages of The London Review of Books, PN Review, Poetry Review and The Wolf.

David is also known for his pioneering ecological poetry installations within natural landscapes and the creation of ‘slow poetry’ sculptures and I-Cast poetry films. David’ s creative writing podcasts are among the most popular literature downloads on iTunes worldwide. Two episodes of his 'writing challenges' are now preloaded onto all demo macs used in Apple Stores across the world

David read Zoology at Bristol University, gaining on graduation a fellowship from the Freshwater Biological Association. He then conducted research on acid rain. David Morley then directed the National Association of Writers in Education. He was elected deputy chair of The Poetry Society (UK) and co-founded The Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden.

He co-edited a bestselling anthology The New Poetryfor Bloodaxe Books (1993) and edited the British and Irish poetry list for Arc Publications for ten years.  David was Literature Officer for Kirklees in Yorkshire, directing the 1995 World Poetry Festival and 1995 National Small Press Festival. Throughout his career Morley has advised British governments on national arts and literature funding, and served on panels for regional and national Arts Councils in England.

In 1996 he co-founded the Warwick Writing Programme with Jeremy Treglown. He is currently Director of the Warwick Writing Programme and Professor of Creative Writing. The University of Warwick awarded him a personal Chair in 2007, and a D.Litt in 2008.

David has received fourteen literary awards, including a major Eric Gregory Award, a Tyrone Guthrie Award from Northern Arts, a Hawthorden International Writers Fellowship, an Arts Council Writers Award, a Creative Ambitions Award, the Raymond Williams Prize, and an Arts Council Fellowship. He has also received two awards for his teaching, including a National Teaching Fellowship. A pamphlet of new poems The Rose of the Moonwas a winner of the Templar Poetry Prize 2009 judged by the distinguished poet Tim Liardet.

David Morley is the Director of the Warwick Prize for Writing. He has been a guest on a number of broadcast programmes including Front Row, Open Book and The Late Show.
He has written criticism, essays and reviews for newspapers and magazines including The Guardian,  Poetry Review, PN Review and The Times Higher Education Supplement. He is currently co-editing The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing.

He tutors for The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School and Maddy Prior's Stones Barn courses. His latest collection of poetry, The Invisible Kings, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

 

Read David's blog at: http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/morleyd/ and website at www.davidmorley.org.uk

Les Murray on The Invisible Kings(Carcanet, 2007)

‘David Morley takes us on a voyage to the other half of his heritage. In a serial masterpiece of verse, he shows us a life intimate with our own, yet more deeply Other than romantic fairytales or even authentic music from Spain and Eastern Europe had suggested it might be. He holds our world up to a language mostly kept secret up to now; the refraction of the familiar is dizzying yet often moving’.  

Michael Schmidt on The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing(CUP, 2007)

‘No writer–teacher is better qualified than David Morley to lift the veils on the discipline of Creative Writing. He writes with all his feelings and a richness of metaphor that is beguiling for the general reader, the general writer, and the teacher. The exercises are inspired, growing out of the author's profound understanding of the inviolable connection between good writing and good and various reading. This book will be an inspiration and tool for teachers and writers who, like Morley, understand that the development of writing involves acquiring skills, and that inborn genius benefits from training and understanding.’ 

Michael Caines in Poetry Review, on Scientific Papers, Carcanet Press 2002 

 ‘As a practitioner of both kinds of literature, and a teacher of both scientific and creative writing at Warwick University, Morley is well-placed to judge of such matters. The reader in turn, should approach this book in the spirit of Mandelstam’s scholar-gardener…Morley’s enquiries produce numerous reasons to read this excellent book’.

 Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor of The Independent,on The Gift, Stride/Nuffield 2002, edited by David Morley 

 ‘I can think of no precedent of The Giftin its scope, nor in its involvement with NHS workers. It also gives a glimpse of David Morley’s projects for the Warwick Writing Programme, which aim to bring together literary and scientific ways of seeing. His anthology pays a rich homage to the art of medicine—and makes a compelling case for the medicine of art’.