W. N. Herbert

W. N. Herbert FRSL, also known as Bill Herbert (born 1961) is a poet from Dundee, Scotland. He writes in both English and Scots. He and Richard Price founded the poetry magazine Gairfish. He currently teaches at Newcastle University.

Early life

Herbert was born in 1961 in Dundee. He was educated at Grove Academy and then studied Brasenose College, Oxford gaining a Doctor of Philosophy in 1992 after completing a thesis on the work of Hugh MacDiarmid.

Career

In 1994, he was one of 20 poets chosen by a panel of judges, as the New Generation in a promotion organised by the Poetry Society. He was one of the writers involved in the Informationist poetry movement that emerged in Scotland in the 1990s.

He became a Professor of Poetry & Creative Writing at the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University.

In September 2013, Herbert was appointed as Dundee's first makar.

Awards and honours

He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2015.

Books

Poetry collections

• Dundee Doldrums (1991)
• The Testament of the Reverend Thomas Dick (1994)
• Cabaret McGonagall (1996)
• The Laurelude (1998)
• The Big Bumper Book of Troy (2002)
• Bad Shaman Blues (2006)
• Three Men on the Metro, with Andy Croft and Paul Summers, Five Leaves (2009)
• Omnesia (2013)

Literary criticism

• To Circumjack MacDiarmid (1992)