Neil Astley, Hon.

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elec ...

(born 12 May 1953) is an English publisher, editor and writer. He is best known as the founder of the poetry publishing house

Bloodaxe Books Bloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specializing in poetry. History Bloodaxe Books was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Bloodaxe moved its editorial office to Northumbe ...

Life and work

Astley was born in

Portchester Portchester is a locality and suburb northwest of Portsmouth, England. It is part of the Fareham (borough), borough of Fareham in Hampshire. Once a small village, Portchester is now a busy part of the expanding conurbation between Portsmouth ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

, and grew up in nearby

Fareham Fareham ( ) is a market town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour, between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton in south east Hampshire, England. It gives its name to the Borough of Fareham. It was historically an important manufac ...

. He was educated at Price's School, Fareham (1964–71), the

Alliance Française An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

, Paris (1972), and

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick unive ...

(1975–78 and 1979–81).''Who's Who 2010'' (A & C Black, 2009). From 1972 to 1975 he worked in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colch ...

, London, Paris and Australia, as a journalist, in publishing (

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univers ...

), and as a press officer for

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

’ magazine division and for

Lyons Maid Lyons Maid is a brand of ice-creams and ice-lollies created in 1925 as a spin-off from the J. Lyons and Co. retail organisation. It is now owned by the Froneri joint venture. Well-known brands produced by Lyons Maid included: Zoom (no longer in ...

ice cream.National Life Story Collection at the

British Library Sound Archive The British Library Sound Archive, formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound; also known as the National Sound Archive (NSA), in London, England is among the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word a ...

(Book Trade Lives transcript) In his essay "The Story of Bloodaxe","The Story of Bloodaxe: 1978–2008", ''In Person: 30 Poets'', filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce, edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), pp. 237–62. he recounts two early life-changing experiences, the first in France in 1972 when he "spent six months in post-'68 Paris... and was radicalised". The second was in Darwin, Australia, where he was working as a sub-editor on the ''

Northern Territory News The ''Northern Territory News'' (also known and branded as the ''NT News'') is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is published every week from Monday to Saturday. It prima ...

'': "On Christmas Day, 1974, Darwin was destroyed by

Cyclone Tracy Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from 24 to 26 December 1974. The small, developing easterly storm had been observed passing clear of the city i ...

. I was trapped under a collapsed house. This brush with death was enough to send me post haste to Newcastle, where I was soon working as a bus conductor while waiting to start my course." In Newcastle upon Tyne, while studying for his degree at the university, he worked as production editor on

Jon Silkin Jon Silkin (2 December 1930 – 25 November 1997) was a British poet. Early life Jon Silkin was born in London, in a Litvak Jewish family, his parents were Joseph Silkin and Doris Rubenstein. His grandparents were all from the Lithuanian- par ...

's ''Stand'' magazine for three years, helped organise poetry readings at

Morden Tower The Morden Tower in Back Stowell Street on the West Walls of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade 1 listed building. Since June 1964, Connie Pickard has been custodian of Morden Tower, and has made it a key ...

, and became involved with small press editing and publishing. Astley is a patron of the

Ledbury Ledbury is a market town and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and west of the Malvern Hills. It has a significant number of timber-framed structures, in particular along Church Lane and High Stree ...

Poetry Festival, having previously served on its board as a trustee. He has also been a development committee member of Cúirt International Literature Festival in

Galway Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a City status in Ireland, city in the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lo ...

, Ireland, an organiser of Newcastle Literary Festival, and a director for three years of the

Poetry Book Society The Poetry Book Society (PBS) was founded in 1953 by T. S. Eliot and friends, including Sir Basil Blackwell, "to propagate the art of poetry". Eric Walter White was secretary from December 1953 until 1971, and was subsequently the society's chai ...

, responsible for adding poetry in translation to the society's remit. He guest-edited the Spring 2015 issue of the US literary journal ''Ploughshares'', the first all-poetry issue in its 44-year history. He has been a contributor to numerous radio and television programmes in Britain and Ireland, including the ''

Today Programme ''Today'', colloquially known as ''the Today programme'', is a long-running British morning news and current-affairs Radio program, radio programme on BBC Radio 4. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 6:00 am to 9:00 am, it is produced by BBC N ...

'', '' Front Row'', ''

Midweek ''MidWeek'' is a weekly United States tabloid shopper and advertisement periodical published in Honolulu, Hawaii and distributed throughout the Islands of Oahu and Kauai. It is owned by Black Press and is a sister publication of the '' Honol ...

'' and '' Start the Week'' on BBC Radio 4, ''The Verb'' on BBC Radio 3, ''

University Challenge ''University Challenge'' is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. ''University Challenge'' aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC ...

'' on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

, GMTV's ''

The Sunday Programme The following details are for the programmes that GMTV (Good Morning Television) broadcast on ITV. GMTV is the former breakfast television franchise for the UK's ITV network. It began broadcasting on Friday 1 January 1993 and finished on Friday ...

'', and ''The Arts Show'' and ''Poetry Now'' on

RTÉ (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, whil ...

. In 2018 he was made an honorary Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, ele ...

Bloodaxe

After graduating in 1978 with a first in English, Astley founded his poetry publishing house

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

. He ran it alone from home while doing postgraduate research and other jobs, until it could pay him a wage seven years later. In 1982, he secured Bloodaxe's first annual funding from Northern Arts, later superseded by more substantial annual grant support from Arts Council England. In 1984 he moved the press into its first office, in the Exchange Buildings on Newcastle's Quayside. Bloodaxe is currently based in Hexham, Northumberland. As Bloodaxe's sole editor and managing director, Astley has published over a thousand books by over 400 writers, and edits, produces and typesets all the press's annual output of around 30 new titles a year. Bloodaxe won the Northern Electric Arts Award in 1989 and the ''Sunday Times'' Small Publisher of the Year Award in 1990. In 1995 Astley was given an honorary

DLitt Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...

, where he has been a visiting fellow at its School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics since 2000. This has involved publishing the series of annual Newcastle/Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures given at the university. Astley's stated aim has been to achieve editorial breadth and balance by publishing what he believes to be the best of many different kinds of poetry: "The only positive discrimination I have exercised has been in favour of literary quality", which has involved commissioning several anthologies designed to redress imbalances in the availability of writing by women or minorities, including Jeni Couzyn's ''Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets'' (1985), E. A. Markham's ''Hinterland: Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain'' (1989),

Deryn Rees-Jones Deryn Rees-Jones is an Anglo-Welsh poet, who lives and works in Liverpool. Although, Rees-Jones has spent much of her life in Liverpool, she spent much of her childhood in the family home of Eglwys-bach in North Wales. She considers herself a We ...

's ''Modern Women Poets'' (2005), published as the companion anthology to a critical study, ''Consorting with Angels'' (2005),

Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil (born 1959) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is the author of several poetry collections, including ''These Errors Are Correct'' (2008), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. His first novel, '' Narcopolis,'' ( ...

's ''Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets'' (2008), ''Out of Bounds: British Black & Asian Poets'' (ed.

Jackie Kay Jacqueline Margaret Kay, (born 9 November 1961), is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works ''Other Lovers'' (1993), ''Trumpet'' (1998) and ''Red Dust Road'' (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Guardian Fictio ...

, James Procter and Gemma Robinson, 2012), and three anthologies of emerging black and minority ethnic poets mentored through the Complete Works project established by Spread the Word, ''Ten: new poets'' (ed.

Bernardine Evaristo Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, (born 28 May 1959) is a British author and academic. Her novel '' Girl, Woman, Other'', jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's '' The Testaments'', making her the first woman with Bla ...

and Daljit Nagra, 2010), ''Ten: the new wave'' (ed. Karen McCarthy Woolf, 2014) and 'Ten: poets of the new generation'' (ed. Karen McCarthy Woolf, 2017). Astley discovered many of the notable poets to emerge in British poetry over the past three decades: "Astley was the first to publish some of the major players",

Daisy Goodwin Daisy Georgia Goodwin (born 19 December 1961) is an English screenwriter, TV producer and novelist. She is the creator of the award winning ITV/ PBS show ''Victoria'' which has sold to 146 countries. She has written three novels: ''My Last Duc ...

reported in a 1993 ''Guardian'' profile. These included

Simon Armitage Simon Robert Armitage (born 26 May 1963) is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds. He has published over 20 collections of poet ...

, David Constantine, Maura Dooley,

Ian Duhig Robert Ian Duhig (born 9 February 1954 London) is a British poet. In 2014, he was a chair of the final judging panel for the T. S. Eliot Prize awards. Life He was the eighth of eleven children born to Irish parents. He graduated from Leeds Uni ...

Helen Dunmore Helen Dunmore FRSL (12 December 1952 – 5 June 2017) was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children's writer. Her best known works include the novels ''Zennor in Darkness'', '' A Spell of Winter'' and ''The Siege'', and her last ...

Jen Hadfield Jen Hadfield (born 1978) is a British poet and visual artist. She has published four poetry collections. Her first collection, ''Almanacs'', won an Eric Gregory Award in 2003. Hadfield is the youngest female poet to be awarded the TS Eliot Pr ...

Gwyneth Lewis Gwyneth Denver Davies (born 1959), known professionally as Gwyneth Lewis, is a Welsh poet, who was the inaugural National Poet of Wales in 2005. She wrote the text that appears over the Wales Millennium Centre. Biography Gwyneth Lewis was b ...

Glyn Maxwell Glyn Maxwell (born 1962) is a British poet, playwright, novelist, librettist, and lecturer. Early life Of primarily Welsh heritage — his mother Buddug-Mair Powell (b. 1928) acted in the original stage show of Dylan Thomas's ''Under Milk Wood'' ...

, Sean O'Brien,

Jo Shapcott Jo Shapcott FRSL (born 24 March 1953, London) is an English poet, editor and lecturer who has won the National Poetry Competition, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Costa Book of the Year Award, a Forward Poetry Prize and the Cholmondeley Aw ...

and Pauline Stainer, many of whom are still published by his firm. Bloodaxe has attracted poets from other commercial poetry lists, including

Philip Gross Philip Gross (born 1952) is a poet, novelist, playwright, children's writer and academic based in England and Wales. He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of South Wales. Biography Philip Gross was born in 1952 at D ...

and Susan Wicks from Faber, Selima Hill and

Peter Reading Peter Reading (27 July 1946 – 17 November 2011) was an English poet and the author of 26 collections of poetry. He is known for his deep interest for the nature and use of classical metres. ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry'' de ...

from Chatto, R. S. Thomas from Macmillan, Ken Smith from Cape,

Adrian Mitchell Adrian Mitchell FRSL (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's Ca ...

from Allison & Busby,

Brendan Kennelly Timothy Brendan Kennelly (17 April 1936 – 17 October 2021), usually known as Brendan Kennelly, was an Irish poet and novelist. He was Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College Dublin until 2005. Following his retirement he was a P ...

from a variety of Irish presses, and eight poets from the distinguished poetry list discontinued by Oxford University Press in 1999:

Fleur Adcock Fleur Adcock (born 10 February 1934) is a New Zealand poet and editor, of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England. She is well-represented in New Zealand poetry anthologies, was awarded an honorary doct ...

, Moniza Alvi,

Basil Bunting Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of '' Briggflatts'' in 1966, generally regarded as one of the major achievements of the modernist traditio ...

Roy Fisher Roy Fisher (11 June 1930 – 21 March 2017) was an English poet and jazz pianist. His poetry shows an openness to both European and American modernist influences, while remaining grounded in the experience of living in the English Midlands. ...

Carole Satyamurti Carole Satyamurti (13 August 1939 – 13 August 2019) was a British poet, sociologist, and translator. Personal life Satyamurti grew up in Kent, and lived in North America, Singapore and Uganda. She lived in London until her death on 13 August ...

Penelope Shuttle Penelope Shuttle (born 12 May 1947) is a British poet. Life Born in Staines, Middlesex, Shuttle left school at 17. She wrote her first novel at the age of 20. She has lived in Falmouth, Cornwall since 1970. She married the poet Peter Redgrove ( ...

Anne Stevenson Anne Stevenson (January 3, 1933 – September 14, 2020) was an American-British poet and writer and recipient of a Lannan Literary Award. Life Stevenson was the first daughter of Louise Destler Stevenson and philosopher Charles Stevenson and ...

and

George Szirtes George Szirtes (; born 29 November 1948) is a British poet and translator from the Hungarian language into English. Originally from Hungary, he has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life after coming to the country as a refugee at the ...

and

went on to win the

T. S. Eliot Prize The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize that was, for many years, awarded by the Poetry Book Society (UK) to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Priz ...

with Bloodaxe collections, as did

from Shetland, with her second collection. He has also sought to redress the neglect of marginalised poets, publishing important collected editions of writers such as

Martin Bell Martin Bell, (born 31 August 1938) is a British UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Ambassador, a former broadcast war reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1997 to 2001. He is sometimes known as " ...

(1988), James Wright (1992),

(2000),

Barry MacSweeney Barry MacSweeney (17 July 1948 – 9 May 2000) was an English poet and journalist. His organizing work contributed to the British Poetry Revival. Life and work 1960s Barry MacSweeney was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He left school aged 16, and be ...

(2003),

Martin Carter Martin Wylde Carter (7 June 1927 – 13 December 1997) was a Guyanese poet and political activist. Widely regarded as the greatest Guyanese poet, and one of the most important poets of the Caribbean region, Carter is best known for his p ...

(2006),

Arun Kolatkar Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar ( Marathi: अरुण बालकृष्ण कोलटकर) (1 November 1932 – 25 September 2004) was an Indian poet who wrote in both Marathi and English. His poems found humour in everyday matters. Kolatkar ...

(2010),

A. S. J. Tessimond Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (19 July 1902 in Birkenhead – 13 May 1962 in Chelsea, London) was an English poet. He went to Birkenhead School until the age of 14, before being sent to Charterhouse School, but ran away at age 16. From 1922 to 19 ...

(2010), Bernard Spencer (2011) and Richard Murphy (2013), as well as a seminal readers' edition of Edward Thomas: ''The Annotated Collected Poems'' (2008) edited by

Edna Longley Edna Longley (born 1940) is an Irish literary critic and cultural commentator specialising in modern Irish and British poetry. Early life and education Born in Cork in 1940, the daughter of mathematics professor T.S. Broderick and a Scottish ...

. In 2014, his ten-year search to find and republish the poet

Rosemary Tonks Rosemary Tonks (17 October 1928 – 15 April 2014) was an English poet and author. After publishing two poetry collections, six novels, and pieces in numerous media outlets, she disappeared from the public eye after her conversion to Fundamentali ...

, who famously "disappeared" in 1979 after severing all contact with the literary world, bore fruit with her posthumously published ''Bedouin of the London Evening: Collected Poems & Selected Prose''. In 1985 Astley encountered translations in an American magazine of poems by

Irina Ratushinskaya Irina Borisovna Ratushinskaya (russian: Ири́на Бори́совна Ратуши́нская, 4 March 1954, Odessa – 5 July 2017, Moscow) was a Russian Soviet dissident, poet and writer. Biography Irina Ratushinskaya was born in Odessa ...

, a young Russian poet then imprisoned in a Soviet prison camp for the "crime" of writing and distributing poems a judge had called "a danger to the state". At the age of 28, she had been sentenced to seven years' hard labour. He commissioned a translator,

David McDuff David McDuff (born 1945, Sale, Cheshire, England) is a Scottish translator, editor and literary critic. Life McDuff attended the University of Edinburgh, where he studied Russian and German, gaining a PhD in 1971. He married mathematician Dus ...

, to produce a book of her poetry in English, which he combined with documentary material on the poet's imprisonment obtained from

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and s ...

. It included extracts from a camp diary charting life in the "Small Zone", a special unit for women prisoners of conscience in Mordovia, where the poet was held. The resulting book, ''No, I'm Not Afraid'', was published in May 1986. An international campaign was mounted on her behalf, spearheaded by her own poetry, which led to her release in October 1986 on the eve of the Reykjavík Summit, after

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Com ...

and

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

had been given copies of her book by

David Owen David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 to 1979, and later ...

. Astley also published

Tony Harrison Tony Harrison (born 30 April 1937) is an English poet, translator and playwright. He was born in Beeston, Leeds and he received his education in Classics from Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University. He is one of Britain's foremost verse w ...

's ''v.'' (1985), a book-length poem set in a vandalised cemetery in Leeds during the Miners’ Strike. Two years after its publication,

Richard Eyre Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre (born 28 March 1943) is an English film, theatre, television and opera director. Biography Eyre was born in Barnstaple, Devon, England, the son of Richard Galfridus Hastings Giles Eyre and his wife, Minna Mar ...

’s film of the work on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

sparked a national furore, not over Harrison's left-wing politics, but over his skinhead protagonist's use of "bad language". Astley's response was to assemble a new edition of ''v.'' (1989) including the poem with documentation of the newspaper and other media coverage which became a set text on cultural studies courses. Astley has commissioned books representing or addressing the poetry of particular generations or periods in British and Irish poetry, including the anthologies ''A Rumoured City'' (introduced by

Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, ''The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, ''Jill'' (1946) and ''A Girl in Winter'' (1947 ...

, edited by

Douglas Dunn Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE (born 23 October 1942) is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He is Professor of English and Director of St Andrew's Scottish Studies Institute at St Andrew's University. Background Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Re ...

, 1982), ''The New Poetry'' (edited by

Michael Hulse Michael Hulse (born 1955) is an English poet, translator and critic, notable especially for his translations of German novels by W. G. Sebald, Herta Müller, and Elfriede Jelinek. Life and works Hulse was educated locally in Stoke-on-Trent unt ...

, David Kennedy and David Morley, 1993)'', The Bloodaxe Book of 20th Century Poetry from Britain and Ireland'' (edited by

, 2000), ''The New Irish Poets'' (edited by Selina Guinness, 2004), ''Voice Recognition'' (edited by James Byrne and Clare Pollard, 2009), ''Identity Parade: New Poets from Britain and Ireland'' (edited by Roddy Lumsden, 2010) and ''Dear World & Everyone In It: new poetry in the UK'' (edited by Nathan Hamilton, 2013). In addition there have been books of essays, such as Sean O'Brien's ''The Deregulated Muse'' (1998), ''Strong Words'' (edited by W.N. Herbert and

Matthew Hollis Matthew Hollis (born 1971) is an English author, editor, professor, and poet, currently living in London, England. Career and background He was born in Norwich, the son of politician Patricia Hollis and academic Martin Hollis. He has studied ...

, 2000) and

's ''Modern Women Poets'' (2005).

Reception

As editor at Bloodaxe for over 30 years Astley has been credited with "revolutionising" and democratising poetry publishing in Britain. Praised for his "omnivorous inclusiveness", he has given readers "as wide a range as possible of contemporary poetry by all kinds of writers", in so doing bringing more readers to contemporary poetry. This involved overturning an earlier bias favouring Oxbridge-educated male writers from south-east England, and publishing leading poets from America, the Caribbean and Europe (including many collections and anthologies of translated poetry from France, Russia, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia in particular), alongside books by new and established poets from all parts of Britain and Ireland, the latter ranging from modernists

and J.H. Prynne to performance poets John Agard and

Benjamin Zephaniah Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (born 15 April 1958)Gregory, Andy (2002), ''International Who's Who in Popular Music 2002'', Europa, p. 562. . is a British writer and dub poet. He was included in ''The Times'' list of Britain's top 50 post-wa ...

. He has sought to open up publishing opportunities for women poets, "not because they are women poets but because they are outstanding writers by any standard. For many years Bloodaxe has been unusual in having a poetry list which is 50:50 male: female", and being "responsive to the changing literatures of Britain and of other countries", so that in 2010 it was possible for a leading Black British writer,

, to observe that "a single imprint, Bloodaxe Books, publishes nearly all the poets not with specialist black and Asian imprints, while several other prominent UK poetry publishers do not publish any black or Asian poets from Britain". Astley has been called "the UK's leading anthologist", best known for ''Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times'' (2002), Britain's biggest selling anthology of contemporary poetry since publication, one of several books he has published aimed at broadening the readership of contemporary poetry and re-igniting the interest of readers who haven't read much poetry since school. A US edition was published in 2003 by Miramax, launched by Astley in New York as a book "for people who know they love poetry and for people who think they don't" at a reading shared with

Meryl Streep Mary Louise Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Often described as "the best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accent adaptability. She has received numerous accolades throu ...

Liev Schrieber Isaac Liev Schreiber (; born October 4, 1967) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and narrator. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s after appearing in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywoo ...

Maria Tucci Maria Tucci (born June 19, 1941) is an American actress. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1967 for her performance in ''The Rose Tattoo''. She played Koula in the 2015 mini-series '' The Slap''. She als ...

Nina Cassian Nina Cassian (pen name of Renée Annie Cassian-Mătăsaru; 27 November 1924, in Galați – 14 April 2014, in New York City) was a Romanian poet, children's book writer, translator, journalist, accomplished pianist and composer, and film critic. ...

, Philip Levine,

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University P ...

Sharon Olds Sharon Olds (born November 12, 1942) is an American poet. Olds won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

, Alice Quinn and

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; born May 9, 1938), known as Charles Simic, is a Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the ''Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for ''The World Doesn' ...

.''Staying Alive'' was a controversial book, popular with readers and booksellers. He has since published the second and third anthologies in his ''Staying Alive'' trilogy, ''Being Alive'' (2004) and ''Being Human'' (2011), which were followed by ''Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy'' (2012). In 2008 he published ''In Person: 30 Poets'', filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce, claimed to be "the world's first DVD-anthology", consisting of films on two DVDs of six hours of readings by 30 poets with all the texts included in the accompanying anthology. This was followed in 2017 by ''In Person: World Poets'', a larger compilation featuring 14 hours of readings and features on DVD covering 59 poets from around the world, again with all the texts included in the book.

Writing

In 1982 Astley received an

Eric Gregory Award The Eric Gregory Award is a literary award given annually by the Society of Authors for a collection by British poets under the age of 30. The award was founded in 1960 by Dr. Eric Gregory to support and encourage young poets. In 2021, the seve ...

from the

Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. , it represents over 12,000 members and ass ...

for a short collection of his own poems'', The Speechless Act'', later published by the Mandeville Press in 1984. His first book-length collection, ''Darwin Survivor'' (Peterloo Poets, 1988), was given a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. A second book of poems,'' Biting My Tongue'', followed in 1995. He has also published two novels, ''The End of My Tether'' (2002/2003), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and ''The Sheep Who Changed the World'' (2005).

Bibliography

As editor (selected list)

* ''Ten North-East Poets'' (

, 1980) * ''Poetry with an Edge'' (

, 1988, 1993) * ''Tony Harrison: a critical anthology'' (

, 1991) * ''New Blood'' (

, 1999) * ''Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times'' (

, UK 2002, Miramax Books, USA 2003) * ''Pleased to See Me: 69 Very Sexy Poems'' (

, 2003) * ''Do Not Go Gentle: poems for funerals'' (

, 2003) * ''Being Alive: the sequel to 'Staying Alive (

, 2004) * ''Passionfood: 100 love poems'' (

, 2005, 2014) * ''Bloodaxe Poetry Introductions I: Alexander, Alvi, Dharker, Kay'' (

, 2006) * ''Bloodaxe Poetry Introductions 2: Enzensberger, Holub, Sorescu, Tranströmer'' (

, 2006) * ''Bloodaxe Poetry Introductions 3: Gilbert, Hirshfield, Kinnell, Merwin'' (

, 2007) * ''Soul Food: nourishing poems for starved minds'', with Pamela Robertson-Pearce (

, 2007) * ''Earth Shattering: ecopoems'' (

, 2007) * ''In Person: 30 Poets'', with DVDs of films by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (

, 2008) * ''Being Human: the companion anthology to 'Staying Alive' and 'Being Alive (

, 2011) * ''Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy'' (

, 2012) * ''The World Record: international voices from Southbank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus'', with Anna Selby (

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nati ...

, 2012) * ''The Hundred Years' War: modern war poems'' (

, 2014) *
Ploughshares
' vol. 41 no.1 (Spring 2015) * ''Funny Ha-Ha, Funny Peculiar: a book of strange & comic poems'' (

, 2015) * ''In Person: World Poets'', with DVDs of films by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (

, 2017) * ''Land of Three Rivers: the poetry of North-East England'' (

, 2017) * ''Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive'' (

, 2020)

Novels

* ''The End of My Tether'' (Flambard Press, 2002; Scribner, 2003) * ''The Sheep Who Changed the World'' (Flambard Press, 2005)

Poetry collections

* ''The Speechless Act'' (The Mandeville Press, 1984), Eric Gregory Award * ''Darwin Survivor'' (Peterloo Poets, 1988), Poetry Book Society Recommendation * ''Biting My Tongue'' (

, 1995)

References

External links

Book Trade Lives: British Library oral history interview

Interview with Neil Astley. ''The Wolf''
number 5, December 2003

* ttp://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/resources/view/free-verse-report Discussion for Spread the Word between Neil Astley and Bernardine Evaristo (2006)
Article by Neil Astley in the ''New Statesman''
"Give poetry back to people" 23 October 2006
Article by Neil Astley on his ''Being Human'' anthology
Poetry Book Society online blog, March 2011
Christina Patterson: ''About Neil Astley''
''Ploughshares'', 126 (Spring 2015)
Extended introduction by Neil Astley to ''Ploughshares'' transatlantic poetry issue
''Ploughshares'' blog (22 April 2015) {{DEFAULTSORT:Astley, Neil Living people 1953 births British book publishers (people) English emigrants to Australia Alumni of Newcastle University Academics of Newcastle University People from Portchester People from Darwin, Northern Territory Poetry publishers English poetry Poetry anthologies