About Alan Morrison...
"Alan Morrison writes with bitter craft, radical eloquence and a passionate Naturalism. Like John Davidson, Robert Tressell, even Gorky, he makes rich poetry out of the thin and battered language of poverty. This is the real thing"
– Andy Croft, Smokestack
"...when Morrison tells what has to be told, one feels suddenly there is no other way of telling it, which is how we think of the great poets. Morrison may well be one of them"
– Frances Thompson, The Journal
"Morrison has attained the Holy Grail of poetic endeavour: a strong, distinctive voice"
– Stephanie Smith-Browne
The Strix Varia
"Morrison's work honours pavanine principles...but with substance. I'd suggest this definition of the term applies to Jeremy Reed, Robert Duncan, Peter
Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle, Niall McDevitt and many others. Morrison has a
massive range of language to accompany high-style. Strong and absorbing work"
– James Byrne, The Wolf
"Alan Morrison's poetry has been compared to Stevie Smith, John Davidson and Harold Monro. It resonates with shades of a gothic, confessional sensibility"
– Colin Hambrook, DADA South
"A real deftness of touch ... a lovely tone"
– Anne Rouse (Bloodaxe)
“Alan – who powerfully recalls a near namesake, Alun Lewis – can unflinchingly put bread and politics across in that order, urgently. His intensively compressed imagism, and generosity, strike at a wracked claustrophobia, creating something no-one else has done, or dares to do at present”
– Dr Simon Jenner, Eratica
“A distinctive voice” – Nicholas Bielby, Pennine Platform
“...a lot of talent with language, a complex and interesting stance”
– Peter Philpott, Great Works
“A remarkable poetic talent” –
Strother Jeremson, New England Gazette
“…four books, by a remarkably ambitious and prolific young writer, between them indicate the wide range of Alan Morrison’s writing so far, as well as the promise they hold for future achievement. Both single, book-length poem sequences reward the reader well with their breathless forward impetus, the sparkle of the kaleidoscopic imagery, and the constantly moving agility of form and thought” –
Graham High, Poetry Express
“Powerful emotion encapsulated in silken word purses” –
Ewan McConnachane, New Catholic
"...they are all heartstopping" -
Paula Brown, The People's Poet
"I love (this) work although it's a bit frightening" - Nick Clark, Poetic Hours
“Alan Morrison is a new but electric voice on the British poetry scene. Morrison has a ‘voice’ (“All that poets can have”, as Auden said). The books are beautifully typeset and printed, a joy to handle and a fascination to read. Morrison is a hope for English poetry where hope is in short supply” – Barry Tebb, Sixties Press
“A poet of enormous potential”
– Sophie Hannah (Carcanet)
Alan Morrison was born in 1974. He grew up in Sussex and then Cornwall, where he started writing stories, plays, and in particular, poetry, partly as a creative response to the harsh policies of the Thatcher period - which had indirectly kept his parents in the poverty trap for the entire late Eighties.
His eclectic influences have included William Blake, John Keats, Emily Bronte, Thomas Hardy, John Davidson, Wilfred Owen, Harold Monro, T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Stevie Smith and Philip Larkin. Morrison's work might be described in various axioms: 'social poetry', 'confessional poetry', 'new Emotionalism' - but probably not as 'fashionable'.
A selection of his poetry first appeared in Don't Think of Tigers (The Do Not Press, 2001), as a prize in the Asham Trust's First Edition 1998. In 2000, he first performed his play for voices, Picaresque, which has gone on to endure as a periodically revived
(and re-drafted) piece performed at such venues
as the Poetry Cafe and the George Bernard Shaw Theatre, RADA. Morrison's publishing history began with a selection from Waterloo Press, followed by
two long poem chapbooks from Sixties Press, and
a pamphlet publication of Picaresque.
Morrison worked at Survivors' Poetry as mentoring co-ordinator, and editor and designer of Poetry Express and the Survivors' Press imprint from
2004-6. During this time he edited and designed four issues of PE, highly praised by Terrible Work and New Hope International and advertised in the London Review of Books. He also designed and edited a series of pamphlets and three volumes of poetry, including David Kessel's O the Windows of the Bookshop Must Be Broken, which Morrison also prefaced.
Morrison's poetry has appeared in Aesthetica, Aireings, Autumn Leaves (Canada), Awen, Bard, Cadenza, Candelabrum, The Cannon's Mouth, Carrillon, Decanto, Echoes of Gilgamesh, Eclipse, Exile, Fickle Muses (US), First Time, Great Works, Illuminations (US), The Journal, The London Magazine, Monkey Kettle, The Once Orange Badge Poetry Supplement, The Penniless Press, Pennine Platform, The People's Poet, Poetic Hours, Poet-in-Residence, Poetry Monthly, Poetry Now, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poet Tree, Pulsar, The Seeker, The Select Six, Snakeskin, Softblow, South, The Strix Varia, Voice & Verse, Whistling Shade (US) and The Yellow Crane.
His short stories have appeared in Beyond Stigma (Sixties Press), Headstorms, The Seeker, The Taj Mahal Review and the Writer's Muse. His prose and criticism,
in Poetry Express and in the anthology Beyond Stigma (Sixties Press).
His first full volume, The Mansion Gardens, was published in 2006 by Paula Brown, who nominated it for the T.S. Eliot Prize. It was launched at Battersea Arts Centre in November 2006.
A second volume, A Tapestry of Absent Sitters, has just been published by Waterloo Press (February, 2009).
An occasional public reader of his work, Morrison's most recent appearance was at Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, London, where he was invited to read his poem in tribute to the International Brigade, Rats, Cats and Kings, at an event commemorating the life and works of Christopher Caudwell.
To read a recent interview with Alan Morrison, please visit The Strix Varia click here
