Mick Imlah

Mick Imlah (1956-2009). Courtesy Faber & Faber.

Michael Ogilvie (Mick) Imlah (26 September 1956 - 12 January 2009) was a Scottish poet and editor.

Life

Youth and education

Imlah was brought up in Milngavie near Glasgow, before moving to Beckenham, Kent, in 1966.

He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he subsequently taught as a Junior Fellow. He revived the historic Oxford Poetry literary magazine.

Career

Imlah edited Poetry Review from 1983 to 1986, and then worked at the Times Literary Supplement from 1992.

Imlah was diagnosed in December 2007 with motor neurone disease. He died of the disease in January 2009, aged 52.

Recognition

His collection The Lost Leader (2008) won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, and was shortlisted for the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

An issue of Oxford Poetry was dedicated to his memory.

In popular culture

Alan Hollinghurst dedicated his 2011 novel 'The Stranger's Child' to Imlah's memory; the final section of the novel has the epigraph 'No one remembers you at all' from Imlah's poem 'In Memoriam Alfred Lord Tennyson'.

Publications

Poetry

• The Zoologist’s Bath, and other adventures (pamphlet). Oxford, UK: Sycamore Press, 1982.
• Birthmarks. London: Chatto & Windus, 1988.
• Penguin New Poets 3 (by Glyn Maxwell, Mick Imlah, & Peter Reading). London & New York: Penguin, 1995.
• Diehard (booklet). Thame, UK: Clutag Press, 2006.
• The Lost Leader. London: Faber, 2008.
• Selected Poems. London: Faber, 2010.

Edited

• Anthony Trollope, Dr. Wortle's School. London & New York: Penguin, 1999.
• The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse (edited with Robert Crawford). London: Allen Lane / Penguin, 2000.
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poems Selected by Mick Imlah. London: Faber, 2002.
• A Century of Poems: From the pages of the 'TLS', 1902-2002 (edited with Alan Jenkins). London: Times Literary Supplement, 2002).
• The TLS On Shakespeare (edited with Michael Caines). London: Times Literary Supplement, 2003.
• Edwin Muir, Selected Poems. London: Faber, 2008.

  

  Guillermo Verdecchia reads from The Lost Leader, by Mick Imlah

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Poems

• "Alex"
• "Gordon Brown"
• Mick Imlah (1956 - 2009) at the Scottish Poetry Library (2 poems)
• "Mick Imlah 1956–2009": a collection of poems by Imlah, reviews of his books and his own essays from TLS, January 12, 2009

Audio / video

• Mick Imlah (1956-2009) at The Poetry Archive

Books

• Mick Imlah at Amazon.com

About

• "Mick Imlah: The lost talent", The Guardian, 27 November 2010.
• Mick Imlah obituary at The Scotsman
• Obituary: Mick Imlah at The Guardian
• "Mick Imlah obituary at The Telegraph
• An Interview with Mick Imlah, Oxford Poetry
• "The Early Poetry of Mick Imlah", Oxford Poetry