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Mick Imlah

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Michael Ogilvie Imlah (26 September 1956 – 12 January 2009), better known as Mick Imlah, was a Scottish poet and editor.

Background

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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 helped revive the historic Oxford Poetry before editing Poetry Review from 1983–6, and then worked at the Times Literary Supplement from 1992.[1] His collection The Lost Leader (2008) won the Forward Prize for Best Collection,[2] and was shortlisted for the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

Imlah died in January 2009, aged 52, as a result of motor neurone disease. He was diagnosed with this disease in December 2007.[3] An issue of Oxford Poetry was dedicated to his memory. 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'. A selection of Imlah's poetry, edited by Mark Ford and with an introduction by Alan Hollinghurst, was published by Faber and Faber in 2010. A selection of his prose appeared in 2015.

Bibliography

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As author

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  • The Zoologist’s Bath (Oxford: Sycamore Press, 1982), 15 pages, ISBN 978-0-906003-04-6
  • Birthmarks, the first full book of his poetry (Chatto & Windus, 1988), 56 pages, ISBN 978-0-7011-3358-0
  • Penguin New Poets 3: Glyn Maxwell, Mick Imlah, Peter Reading (1994), ISBN 978-0-14-058742-5
  • Diehard, booklet (Clutag Press, 2006) ISBN 978-0-9547275-9-8
  • The Lost Leader, the second full book of his poetry before his death (Faber and Faber, 2008), ISBN 978-0-571-24307-5

As editor

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Posthumous

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References

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  1. ^ "Obituary: Mick Imlah". The Times. London. 13 January 2009. Archived from the original on 21 July 2009. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
  2. ^ Flood, Alison (8 October 2008). "Mick Imlah takes Forward prize after 20-year silence". guardian.co.uk. London. Retrieved 9 January 2009.
  3. ^ Crown, Sarah (13 January 2009). "Poet Mick Imlah dies, aged 52". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
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