Staff Profile

Introduction

Harry Man is a multi award-winning poet, playwright, editor and translator. His work has been published in newspapers and literary journals nationally and internationally and has been featured on BBC Radio 4.

His most recent book is Popular Song (Nine Arches Press). Deretter (‘Thereafter’) a book of concrete elegies written in collaboration with Norwegian poet Endre Ruset includes poems that won the Stephen Spender Prize for Translation and was a Broken Sleep Books and a Dagblaget Book of the Year. Additionally Harry Man was the recipient of a Northern Writers Award and his work has been reviewed in Poetry London, The Lancet the Poetry Book Society and Magma among other places. His poetry has been translated into eleven languages including Slovak, Swedish, Turkish, Dutch, Chinese, Arabic and German. Alongside his work as a poet, Harry is a children’s playwright for a two-person interactive dance theatre company, Fully Booked Theatre. His plays have been performed at Stockton International Riverside Festival, Dance City and Greenbelt Festival among others. He runs creative writing workshops in schools, libraries, museums and community centres throughout the country and teaches on the postgraduate MSt in Creative Writing at Oxford University. He lives in County Durham with his partner the Canadian contemporary dance choreographer Jennifer Essex. 

Background

Lift (Tall Lighthouse, 2013) won the UNESCO Bridges of Struga Award and was shortlisted for a Best Pamphlet Sabotage Award. Harry Man went on to collaborate with the artist Sophie Gainsley on Finders Keepers a book of poems and illustrations centred around endangered species throughout the UK. Finders Keepers was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and a Sabotage Award for Best Collaboration. He has been a poet in residence at among others the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, The Fleetwood Initiative, for NHS South Tees and at The Wordsworth Trust. His latest book is Popular Song published by Nine Arches Press. He has recently translated Endre Ruset's award-winning book Noriaki which is available from Broken Sleep Books.

Roles and Responsibilities

Harry Man is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University.

The RLF offers free and confidential 1-to-1 support to students looking to improve their essay writing. 

We help students and staff to plan their study time, focus their reading and research, express ideas more clearly, as well as answer questions around grammar and punctuation. We can also help students to discover new ways to improve their writing and editing skills across essays, reports, theses, dissertations and book chapters.

Harry Man is available on Wednesdays and Thursdays (Summer 2024)

Books:

Popular Song (Nine Arches Press 2024)

Noriaki (Broken Sleep Books 2024) - A translation of Endre Ruset's poetry from Norwegian

Utøya Thereafter: Poems in Memory of the 2011 Norway Attacks – in collaboration with Endre Ruset (Hercules Editions, 2021)

Deretter (Flamme forlag, 2021)

Greatist Hits II Selected Poems of SJ Fowler and Harry Man – in collaboration with SJ Fowler

(Kingston University Press, 2019)

Finders Keepers – in collaboration with Sophie Gainsley (Sidekick Books 2016)

Lift (Tall Lighthouse, 2014)

Books – contributions and chapters (selected):

Urban Terrorism in Contemporary Europe: Remembering, Imagining and Anticipating Violence (Springer AG 2024)

Perspective Magazine [Poem] (Perspective Media, 2024)

Brightwater Anthology of New Writing (Paper Ink 2022)

Rhubarb Seconds – Poems from the Rhubarb Triangle ed. Michael Farren (Rhubarb Press 2022)

Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Twenty Years of British Poetry from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen ed. Maisie Lawrence and Rishi Dastidar (Corsair 2021)

The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century ed. Rishi Dastidar (Nine Arches Press 2019)

Nemeses, Selected Collaborations 2014-2019 (HVTN 2019)

Dragons of the Prime - Poems about Dinosaurs (The Emma Press 2019)

Don’t Be Afraid - An Anthology to Seamus Heaney (Impressum 2018)

The Tree Line - Poems for Trees, Woods & People ed. Michael McKimm (Worple Press 2018)

Poems in the Waiting Room Collected Edition Volume Two (Poems in the Waiting Room 2017)

Zoomorphic Anthology of Oceanic Life (Zoomorphic 2017)

Asterism ed. Tiffany Anne Tondut (Laudanum 2016)

The Emma Press Anthology of Age, ed. Sarah Hesketh (Emma Press 2015)

Falling Out of the Sky: Poems about Myths and Legends (Emma Press 2015)

Fathers and What Must Be Said (Rebel Poetry Ireland 2014)

Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History, eds. Gareth Prior & Claire Trévien (TRHP 2014)

Tour de Vers ed. Andy Jackson (Red Squirrel Press 2014)

The Emma Press Anthology of Fatherhood (Emma Press 2014)

Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books (Minor Arcana 2014)

Coin Opera 2: Dr Fulminare’s Revenge (Sidekick Books 2013)

PEN International Made-Up-Words (Pen International 2013)

Harry teaches on the Creative Writing MSt at Oxford University, for The Poetry School, Nine Arches Press and for New Writing North among others.

• Authored Books

  • Man H. Popular Song. Rugby: Nine Arches Press, 2024.
  • Man H, Ruset E. Utøya Thereafter: Poems in Memory of the 2011 Norway Attacks. London: Hercules Editions, 2021.
  • Fowler SJ, Man H. Greatist Hits Volume II: The Selected Collaborations of SJ Fowler and Harry Man. Kingston University Press, 2019.
  • Man H, Gainsley S. Finders Keepers. UK: Sidekick Books, 2016.
  • Man, H. Lift. UK: Tall Lighthouse, 2013. In Preparation.