Glyn Maxwell

Glyn Maxwell (he/him) is a poet, playwright, librettist and teacher.

Glyn Maxwell is widely regarded as one of the finest poets working today. He is also a teacher of poetry, and his introduction to the craft, On Poetry, is widely read in schools and universities on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been teaching for thirty years, notably at Amherst, Columbia, Princeton, the New School and NYU in the US, and in London at RADA and The Poetry School, where he has taught the MA in Writing Poetry since 2017.

He has worked with the Phoenix family since 2005, when he lived in New York, met Craig and Elise at a last-night party and immediately wanted in. The next year the Phoenix staged his verse-plays Broken Journey and Wolfpit. Six other plays followed, the latest being Drinks With Dead Poets, which premiered at the Nyack Festival in 2023, prior to an off-Broadway run which saw it nominated for ‘Best New Play Off-Broadway’. Though Glyn has been based back in London since 2007, his heart remains very much In Residence.

His several poetry books have won or been shortlisted for all the major UK poetry prizes, most recently the T. S. Eliot Prize for How The Hell Are You (2020). 2023’s The Big Calls is a (not very flattering) study of England now. In 2012 he published On Poetry, described in The Guardian as ‘the best book about poetry I’ve ever read’ and which is widely read in schools and colleges on both sides of the Atlantic. Its sequel, Silly Games To Save The World, is available on his Substack of the same name. The Substack also features his most recent poems under the name Extinction Songs, which are poems written for the most endangered creatures in the world.

His plays have been widely staged in the UK and US, most notably Liberty at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2008, and The Lifeblood at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, which won the British Theatre Guide’s ‘Best Play’. He has written several libretti, including The Firework Maker’s Daughter (2013) which was nominated for an Olivier Award and came to the New Victory on Broadway, along with new English words for Mozart’s The Magic Flute (2017) and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (2023).

Glyn has taught at Amherst, Columbia, Princeton, NYU and the New School in the US, and at Warwick and Essex in the UK. For the last seven years he has been Head of Studies for The Poetry School at Somerset House in London.

‘The finest dramatic poet now working in English…’ – Nick Laird, Daily Telegraph

‘Glyn Maxwell covers a greater distance in a single line than most people do in a poem…’ – Joseph Brodsky

‘Clearly the major poet of his generation…’ – James Wood 

‘One of our finest poets…’ – Carol Ann Duffy

‘One of the true modern masters of the craft…’ – Simon Armitage

 ‘A poet who knows as well as any how to make a human sound…’

– The Guardian 

On ON POETRY

‘The best book about poetry I’ve ever read’ – Adam Newey, The Guardian

‘Destined to become a modern classic’ – Hugo Williams, The Spectator