Richard Price (poet)

Richard Price (born 1966 Reading) is a contemporary Scottish poet, novelist, and translator.

Life
He grew up in Renfrewshire. He studied at Napier College, in journalism, and graduated the University of Strathclyde in English and Librarianship, with a joint first. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Strathclyde. =

Career
He has worked with artists in sculpture, digital art, artist's books and music. His collaborators include Julie Johnstone, Simon Lewandowski, Karen Bleitz, Caroline Trettine and Ronald King. He is a lyricist and vocalist in the band Mirabeau.

His translations include the Guillaume Apollinaire poems in Eftirs / Afters (with Donny O'Rourke, Au Quai, 1996) and the Louise Labé poems in Lute Variations (Rack Press, 2005).

In the 1990s he co-edited the poetry magazines Gairfish (with W. N. Herbert), Verse (with Robert Crawford, Henry Hart, David Kinloch, and others) and Southfields (with Raymond Friel). At this time he also ran the poetry publisher Vennel Press with Leona Medlin, publishing books by W.N. Herbert, Elizabeth James, David Kinloch, Peter McCarey, Medlin and Price themselves, and others. He was one of the group associated with Informationist poetry, coining the phrase. He introduced Informationist ideas in 1991 in the magazine Interference and, later, in his introduction to the anthology of Informationist poetry Contraflow on the Superhighway, co-edited with Herbert (Gairfish and Southfields, 1994). He currently edits the magazine Painted, spoken.

From 2003 to 2010 he was Head of Modern British Collections at the British Library, London, curating exhibitions that included Ted Hughes: The Page is Printed (2004) and The Possibility of Poetry: From Migrant magazine to artists' books (2007). He has written on the history of the modern literary magazine in the United Kingdom, co-authoring with David Miller British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of 'Little Magazines' (British Library, 2006).

In 2010 he published The Island (Two Ravens Press) a novel about a father and young daughter who, as an act of revenge, steal a car. It draws on characters who first appeared in his short story collection A Boy in Summer (Neil Wilson / 11:9, 2002).

In 2011 the musical project for which he is the principle lyricist, Mirabeau, released its first album, Golden Key. Several of the songs are settings of poems from his earlier poetry collections while others are closer to rock and folk genres of songwriting. Mirabeau comprises Price (as lyricist and vocalist), the singer-songwriter Caroline Trettine and the musician Ian Kearey (of The Blue Aeroplanes).

Recognition
Lucky Day was shortlisted for the Whitbread prize. Rays (Carcanet), containing many love poems as well as variations on the sonnets and canzone of Louise Labé and Guido Cavalcanti was shortlisted for a Scottish Book Award.

Poetry

 * Tube Shelter Perspective (Southfields, 1993)
 * Marks & Sparks (Akros, 1995)
 * Perfume & Petrol Fumes (Diehard, 1999)
 * Lucky Day, Carcanet, 2004, ISBN 978-1-85754-761-0
 * Greenfields, Carcanet 2007, ISBN 978-1-85754-920-1
 * Rays, Carcanet 2009, ISBN 978-1-84777-010-3

Short Stories

 * A boy in summer: short stories, 11/9, 2002, ISBN 978-1-903238-50-9

Novels

 * The Island, Two Ravens Press, ISBN 978-1-906120-54-2

Non-fiction

 * The Fabulous Matter of Fact: The Poetics of Neil M. Gunn Edinburgh University Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0-7486-0259-9
 * David Miller, Richard Price (eds), British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography (Oak Knoll Press/The British Library, 2006). ISBN 978-1-58456-197-2
 * David Kinloch, Richard Price (eds), La Nouvelle Alliance: influences francophone sur la littérature écossaise moderne (Ellug, 2000)
 * James McGonigal, Richard Price (eds) The Star You Steer By: Basil Bunting and British Modernism (Rodopi, 2000).