Herbert, W.N.

(1961- )

   Born in Dundee, Scotland, he was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford. His doctorate on the work of Hugh MacDiarmid was published as To Circumjack MacDiarmid (1992). Herbert was Northern Arts Literary Fellow at Newcastle and Durham Universities from 1994 to 1996, and has also held residencies in Dumfries and Galloway (1993) and Moray Libraries (1993-1994), as well as for the Cumbria Arts' Skylines education project in 1997 and the Wordsworth Trust's Dove Cottage in Grasmere (1997-1998). He teaches creative writing at Lancaster University and lives in a converted lighthouse in North Shields. He won awards for Forked Tongue, Cabaret McGonagall, and The Laurelude. Some of his poetry publications: Sterts and Stobies: Poems in Scots, 1985. Sharawaggi: Poems in Scots, 1990 (with Robert Crawford, see entry). Dundee Doldrums, 1991. The Testament of the Reverend Thomas Dick, 1994. Forked Tongue, 1994. The Laurelude, 1998. Some of his poems: "Praise of Italian Chip-Shops," "The Anxiety of Information," "The Baby Poem Industry," "The Black Wet," "The Postcards of Scotland," "The Socialist Manifesto for East Balgillo," "To a Mousse."

   Sources: Antholog y of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). National Poetry Day-Thursday 9 October 2003, Dundee: Ode to the Old Tay Bridge by W.N. Herbert (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/natpoetday/2003_dundee.shtml). New Blood, Neil Astley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1999. Poetry with an Edge. Neil Astley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1988. The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Scottish Poetry. Douglas Dunn, ed. Faber and Faber, 1992. The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse. Robert Crawford and Mick Imlah, ed. Penguin Books, 2000. The Penguin Book of Poetry from Britain and Ireland Since 1945. Robert Crawford, and Simon Armitage, ed. Penguin Books, 1998.