Glyn Maxwell is a poet, playwright and teacher. His debut collection Tale of the Mayor’s Son (Bloodaxe Books, 1990) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. His second, Out of the Rain (Bloodaxe Books, 1992), won him the Somerset Maugham Award. His third collection, Rest for the Wicked (Bloodaxe Books, 1995), like his second, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Boys at Twilight: Poems 1990-1995 (Bloodaxe Books, 2000) was a selection from his first three poetry collections from Bloodaxe. He has since published several collections with Faber and Picador as well as writing for the theatre, opera and radio, and publishing On Poetry (Oberon Masters, 2012). His most recent poetry titles include The Big Calls (2023); How The Hell Are You (2020), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; Pluto (2013), shortlisted for the Forward Prize; and One Thousands Nights and Counting: Selected Poems (2011), all from Picador, with Extinction Songs to follow from Bloodaxe in 2027. He is Head of Studies on the MA in Poetry at The Poetry School in London, and writes the Substack Silly Games to Save the World.
