Gregory Woods

"The poet with the sharpest technique for social verse in Britain today. He lets off fireworks through the official groves of English literature"--Peter Porter

"The poems of Gregory Woods have never failed to impress me. When a book like Quidnunc, his fourth collection from Carcanet, makes its appearance it makes me seriously wonder what the selectors and pre-selectors of prestigious awards are up to. Why isn't Gregory Woods' name up there? For a start there are few poets around who can rival him technically"--Matt Simpson

"When I think of the dross that is regularly published, noticed, praised, rewarded, and then consider that for the most part Woods goes without recognition, I'm not so much aghast as enraged at the (still largely London) cabal that decides poetic worth in England"--John Lucas

"I'm not sure I had ever written a fan letter before to a poet I had not met, but that's what I did when I read two poems by Gregory Woods ... I admired them especially for their technical virtuosity, in that it was technique completely used, never for the sake of cleverness but as a component of feeling ... What an enviable talent Gregory Woods has"--Thom Gunn

"I have read Gregory Woods' poems with real excitement"--Sir Stephen Spender

"Probably, the finest gay poet in the United Kingdom ... a poet of considerable technical ability and intellectual depth"--Sinead Morrissey


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Welcome to my website.

I want to use it to post information about my poetry and literary criticism, but also about my career as an academic and teacher. As it develops, I’ll be using it to showcase new poetry, and to post news about forthcoming publications and public appearances. If you want to buy any of my books, please go to the links page to see how to contact my publishers.

On black sand between
concrete breakwater
blocks and the railway

unsolved by footprints
in any direction
a naked Adam

or premature last man
looks up at the train
as if at a thought

passing through his mind.
How does the logic of
his body explain us?





[from Gregory Woods, We Have the Melon (Manchester: Carcanet, 1992)]