Glyn Maxwell
Encyclopedia
Early life
Though his parents are Welsh, Maxwell was born and raised in Welwyn Garden CityWelwyn Garden City
-Economy:Ever since its inception as garden city, Welwyn Garden City has attracted a strong commercial base with several designated employment areas. Among the companies trading in the town are:*Air Link Systems*Baxter*British Lead Mills*Carl Zeiss...
in Hertfordshire. He studied English at Worcester College, Oxford. He began an MLitt there, but in 1987 moved to America to study poetry and drama with Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...
at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
. He returned to the UK and began publishing poetry in the 1990s.
Poetry and other work
His three earliest collections of poetry, Tale Of The Mayor's Son (1990), Out of the Rain (1992), Rest For The Wicked (1995) are collected as The Boys at Twilight: Poems 1990-1995 (2000). "The Breakage" was shortlisted for both the T.S.Eliot and Forward Prizes.
E. M. Forster Award
The E. M. Forster Award is a $20,000 award given annually to an Irish or British writer to fund a period of travel in the United States. The award, named after the English novelist E. M. Forster, is administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters...
in 1997. His book Time's Fool (2000) is a narrative poem written in terza rima
Terza rima
Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.-Form:Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D...
, and is now in development as a film. His most recent collections are The Nerve (2002, winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman publisher Faber & Faber...
), The Sugar Mile (2005) and Hide Now, which was published in 2008 and shortlisted for both the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2008 and the Forward Prize in 2009. "One Thousand Nights and Counting," a selection of his poetry, was published by Picador.
His first novel, Blue Burneau (1994), was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Prize
Costa Book Awards
The Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2005, after which Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship....
and the book Moon Country, published in 1996, describes a visit to Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
with Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage CBE is a British poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life and career:Simon Armitage was born in Marsden, West Yorkshire. Armitage first studied at Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, Huddersfield and went on to study geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic...
. His second novel The Girl Who Was Going To Die was published in 2008 by Cape in the UK and by Kunstmann in Germany.
His new play ”After Troy" (dir. Alex Clifton), a retelling of Euripides' "Women of Troy" and 'Hecabe" premieres in March 2011 at the Oxford Playhouse, prior to a 5-week run at the Shaw Theatre in London, and a UK tour. Other recent plays include "Lily Jones's Birthday" a satyr-play based on Aristophanes' "Lysistrata", which premiered at RADA in 2009; Liberty, about the French Revolution, which premiered at Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse in the London Borough of Southwark, located on the south bank of the River Thames, but destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt 1614 then demolished in 1644. The modern reconstruction is an academic best guess, based...
in the 2008 season (dir. Guy Retallack) and toured the UK. Also in 2008, The Only Girl in the World was revived at the Arcola
Arcola Theatre
Arcola Theatre is a studio theatre in Dalston, in the London Borough of Hackney. The theatre's ambition is to create and present high-quality theatre with a social and political relevance to its multicultural local community as well as a wider audience....
(dir. Alex Clifton); Mimi and the Stalker premiered at theatre503, produced by Giudecca, (dir. Michael Gieleta); and The Lifeblood was revived in New York, produced by Phoenix Theatre Ensemble (dir. Bob Hupp) at the Connolly Theater.
His radio adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Gambler was on BBC Radio 3 in June 2009, and repeated on BBC Radio 4 in December 2010, starring Patricia Routledge
Patricia Routledge
Katherine Patricia Routledge, CBE is an English character comedy actress and singer. She is best known for her role as character Hyacinth Bucket in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances and Hetty Wainthropp in the British television series Hetty Wainthropp Investigates...
, Sam Crane, Siobhan Hewlett and Nicholas Le Prevost, and directed by Guy Retallack.
The Lifeblood, concerning the last days of Mary, Queen of Scots, was British Theatre Guide's 'Play of the Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August...
' at Edinburgh in 2004, and was directed by Guy Retallack with Sue Scott Davison as Mary. The Lifeblood was first performed at the Hen and Chickens Theatre
Hen and Chickens Theatre
The Hen and Chickens Theatre is a fringe venue for theatre and comedy situated above a pub at Highbury in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre management was awarded to actress Felicity Wren in 1999.-External links:*...
in 2001 with Felicity Wren
Felicity Wren
-Biography:Felicity co-founded the Unrestricted View Theatre company in 1997. Unrestricted View became the resident company at the Hen and Chickens Theatre in Islington, London in 1999. Felicity was joint awarded Best Venue Manager by the Fringe Report in 2005....
as Mary.
His play Mimi and The Stalker was one of six projects awarded funding by the UK Film Council in the spring 2009 quarter, for development as a screenplay under the name "Witchgrass".
Other plays include Wolfpit, about two green children said to have appeared in Suffolk in the 12th century (Edinburgh 1996; New York 2006), The Forever Waltz, a reworking of the Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
-Eurydice
Eurydice
Eurydice in Greek mythology, was an oak nymph or one of the daughters of Apollo . She was the wife of Orpheus, who loved her dearly; on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, a satyr saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a venomous snake,...
story (New York 2005; Edinburgh 2005), and The Only Girl in the World, a play about Mary Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly , also known as "Marie Jeanette" Kelly, "Fair Emma", "Ginger" and "Black Mary", is widely believed to be the fifth and final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to...
, the last victim of Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
(London 2001). He contributed the fantasy The Black Remote to the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
's Connections series in 2006. He is the Resident Playwright for New York's Phoenix Theatre Ensemble.
Luke Bedford's opera "Seven Angels", for which Maxwell wrote the libretto, premiered at Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in June 2010.
Maxwell wrote the libretto for Elena Langer's opera "The Lion's Face", which toured the UK in 2009. A short version of The Lion's Face, (then titled The Present) won the Audience Prize at the Zurich Opera House's New Opera Festival in January 2009.
His other libretti include The Girl of Sand, also composed by Elena Langer and performed at the Almeida Opera Festival in 2004, and The Birds (after Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
), composed by Edward Dudley Hughes and performed by I Fagiolini
I Fagiolini
I Fagiolini is a British vocal ensemble specialising in early music and contemporary music. Founded by Robert Hollingworth at Oxford in 1986, the group won the UK Early Music Network’s Young Artists’ Competition in 1988 and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2006...
at the City of London Festival
City of London Festival
The City of London Festival is an annual arts festival that takes place in the City of London, England, over two to three weeks in June and July. The Festival is strongly geared towards classical music, but also offers a programme that includes jazz, world music, opera, film screenings, lectures...
in 2005.
His verse monologue, The Best Man, was turned into a feature film starring Danny Swanson (dir. Jon Croker).
He has taught at Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
and The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
in New York City, and for the Poetry School and Goldsmiths College in London. He teaches annual poetry master classes at the Y in New York City. He was Poetry Editor of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
from 2001 to 2007. He reviews for the Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, and The New Republic. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Welsh Academy.
He married Geraldine Harmsworth in London in 1997; they divorced in 2006. They have one daughter, Alfreda (b. 1997). Maxwell returned to the UK after ten years in New York, United States (1997-2006) and lives in Islington, London. Alfreda, also known as Alfie, is now 14 years old and goes to Worth Abbey School.
External links
- Author biography at contemporarywriters.com
- Website for the film version of The Best Man
- Glyn Maxwell Poem in Qualm
- The Execution of Saint-Just at Thermidor Maxwell poem published in The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...