Neil Astley, Hon.

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...

(born 12 May 1953) is an English publisher, editor and writer. He is best known as the founder of the poetry publishing house

Bloodaxe Books Bloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specializing in poetry. History Bloodaxe Books was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Bloodaxe moved its editorial office to Northumbe ...

Life and work

Astley was born in

Portchester Portchester is a village in the borough of Fareham in Hampshire, England. It is northwest of Portsmouth and around 18 miles east of Southampton on the A27 road. Its population according to the 2011 United Kingdom census was 17,789. Name Portc ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, and grew up in nearby

Fareham Fareham ( ) is a market town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour, between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton in south east Hampshire, England. It gives its name to the Borough of Fareham. It was historically an important manufac ...

. He was educated at Price's School, Fareham (1964–71), the

Alliance Française (; "French Alliance", stylised as ''af'') is an international organization that aims to promote the French language and francophone culture around the world. Created in Paris on 21 July 1883 under the name ''Alliance française pour la propa ...

, Paris (1972), and

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick university and a mem ...

(1975–78 and 1979–81).''Who's Who 2010'' (A & C Black, 2009). From 1972 to 1975 he worked in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''. Colchester occupies the ...

, London, Paris and Australia, as a journalist, in publishing (

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

), and as a press officer for

Warner Brothers Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

' magazine division and for

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ice cream.National Life Story Collection at the

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(Book Trade Lives transcript) In his essay "The Story of Bloodaxe","The Story of Bloodaxe: 1978–2008", ''In Person: 30 Poets'', filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce, edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), pp. 237–62. he recounts two early life-changing experiences, the first in France in 1972 when he "spent six months in post-'68 Paris... and was radicalised". The second was in Darwin, Australia, where he was working as a sub-editor on the ''

Northern Territory News The ''Northern Territory News'' (also known and branded as the ''NT News'') is a morning Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper based in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is published every week from ...

'': "On Christmas Day, 1974, Darwin was destroyed by

Cyclone Tracy Severe Tropical Cyclone Tracy was a small but destructive tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, in December 1974. The small but developing easterly storm was or ...

. I was trapped under a collapsed house. This brush with death was enough to send me post haste to Newcastle, where I was soon working as a bus conductor while waiting to start my course." In

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

, while studying for his degree at the university, he worked as production editor on Jon Silkin's ''Stand'' magazine for three years, helped organise poetry readings at Morden Tower, and became involved with small press editing and publishing. Astley is a patron of the

Ledbury Ledbury is a market town and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and west of the Malvern Hills. It has a significant number of Tudor style timber-framed structures, in particular along Church Lane a ...

Poetry Festival, having previously served on its board as a trustee. He has also been a development committee member of Cúirt International Literature Festival in

Galway Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...

, Ireland, an organiser of Newcastle Literary Festival, and a director for three years of the Poetry Book Society, responsible for adding poetry in translation to the society's remit. He guest-edited the Spring 2015 issue of the US literary journal ''Ploughshares'', the first all-poetry issue in its 44-year history. He has been a contributor to numerous radio and television programmes in Britain and Ireland, including the ''

Today Programme ''Today'', colloquially known as ''the Today programme'', is BBC Radio 4's long-running morning news and current-affairs radio programme. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 06:00 to 09:00 (starting on Saturday at 07:00), it is produced by BB ...

'', '' Front Row'', ''

Midweek ''MidWeek'' is a weekly United States tabloid shopper and advertisement periodical published Wednesday in Honolulu, Hawaii and distributed throughout the Islands of Oahu and Kauai. It is owned by Black Press and is a sister publication of th ...

'' and '' Start the Week'' on BBC Radio 4, ''The Verb'' on BBC Radio 3, ''

University Challenge ''University Challenge'' is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. ''University Challenge'' aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC ...

'' on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

, GMTV's '' The Sunday Programme'', and ''The Arts Show'' and ''Poetry Now'' on

RTÉ (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

. In 2018 he was made an honorary Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

Bloodaxe

After graduating in 1978 with a first in English, Astley founded his poetry publishing house

. He ran it alone from home while doing postgraduate research and other jobs, until it could pay him a wage seven years later. In 1982, he secured Bloodaxe's first annual funding from Northern Arts, later superseded by more substantial annual grant support from Arts Council England. In 1984 he moved the press into its first office, in the Exchange Buildings on Newcastle's Quayside. Bloodaxe is currently based in

Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden nearby, and close to Hadrian's Wall. Hexham was the administra ...

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

. As Bloodaxe's sole editor and managing director, Astley has published more than a thousand books by more than 400 writers, and edits, produces and typesets all the press's annual output of around 30 new titles a year. Bloodaxe won the Northern Electric Arts Award in 1989 and the ''Sunday Times'' Small Publisher of the Year Award in 1990. In 1995 Astley was given an honorary DLitt by

, where he has been a visiting fellow at its School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics since 2000. This has involved publishing the series of annual Newcastle/Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures given at the university. Astley's stated aim has been to achieve editorial breadth and balance by publishing what he believes to be the best of many different kinds of poetry: "The only positive discrimination I have exercised has been in favour of literary quality", which has involved commissioning several anthologies designed to redress imbalances in the availability of writing by women or minorities, including Jeni Couzyn's ''Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets'' (1985), E. A. Markham's ''Hinterland: Caribbean Poetry from the West Indies and Britain'' (1989), Deryn Rees-Jones's ''Modern Women Poets'' (2005), published as the companion anthology to a critical study, ''Consorting with Angels'' (2005),

Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil (born 1959) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is the author of several poetry collections, including ''These Errors Are Correct'' (2008), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. His first novel, ''Narcopolis (book ...

's ''Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets'' (2008), ''Out of Bounds: British Black & Asian Poets'' (ed.

Jackie Kay Jacqueline Margaret Kay (born 9 November 1961) is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works ''Other Lovers'' (1993), ''Trumpet'' (1998) and ''Red Dust Road'' (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Somerset Maugham A ...

, James Procter and Gemma Robinson, 2012), and three anthologies of emerging black and minority ethnic poets mentored through The Complete Works project established by Spread the Word, ''Ten: new poets'' (ed.

Bernardine Evaristo Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo (born 28 May 1959) is an English author and academic. Her novel ''Girl, Woman, Other'' jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's ''The Testaments'', making her the first Black woman to win ...

and

Daljit Nagra Daljit Nagra (born 1966) is a British poet whose debut collection, ''Look We Have Coming to Dover!'' was published by Faber in 2007. Nagra's poems relate to the experience of Indians born in the UK (especially Indian Sikhs), and often employ l ...

, 2010), ''Ten: the new wave'' (ed. Karen McCarthy Woolf, 2014) and 'Ten: poets of the new generation'' (ed. Karen McCarthy Woolf, 2017). Astley discovered many of the notable poets to emerge in British poetry over the past three decades: "Astley was the first to publish some of the major players",

Daisy Goodwin Daisy Georgia Goodwin (born 19 December 1961) is an English screenwriter, TV producer and novelist. She is the creator of the ITV/ PBS show '' Victoria'' which has sold to 146 countries. She has written four novels: ''My Last Duchess'' or ''Th ...

reported in a 1993 ''Guardian'' profile. These included Simon Armitage, David Constantine, Maura Dooley, Ian Duhig,

Helen Dunmore Helen Dunmore FRSL (12 December 1952 – 5 June 2017) was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children's writer. Her best known works include the novels ''Zennor in Darkness'', ''A Spell of Winter'' and ''The Siege (Dunmore novel) , ...

, Jen Hadfield,

, Gwyneth Lewis, Glyn Maxwell, Sean O'Brien, Jo Shapcott and Pauline Stainer, many of whom are still published by his firm. Bloodaxe has attracted poets from other commercial poetry lists, including Philip Gross and Susan Wicks from Faber, Selima Hill and Peter Reading from Chatto,

R. S. Thomas Ronald Stuart Thomas (29 March 1913 – 25 September 2000), published as R. S. Thomas, was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest noted for nationalism, spirituality and dislike of the anglicisation of Wales. John Betjeman, introducing ''Song at the ...

from Macmillan, Ken Smith from Cape,

Adrian Mitchell Adrian Mitchell FRSL (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist, and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's C ...

from Allison & Busby, Brendan Kennelly from a variety of Irish presses, and eight poets from the distinguished poetry list discontinued by Oxford University Press in 1999:

Fleur Adcock Fleur Adcock (10 February 1934 – 10 October 2024) was a New Zealand poet and editor. Of English and Northern Irish ancestry, Adcock lived much of her life in England. She is well-represented in New Zealand poetry anthologies, was awarded an ...

, Moniza Alvi,

Basil Bunting Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of '' Briggflatts'' in 1966, generally regarded as one of the major achievements of the modernist traditi ...

, Roy Fisher, Carole Satyamurti,

Penelope Shuttle Penelope Shuttle (born 12 May 1947) is an English poet and author. She has published fifteen volumes of poetry, plus two selected volumes, and six works of fiction. She has won the Eric Gregory Award and the Cholmondeley Award and has been sho ...

, Anne Stevenson and

George Szirtes George Szirtes (; born 29 November 1948) is a British poet and translator from the Hungarian language into English. Originally from Hungary, he has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life after coming to the country as a refugee at the ...

. Philip Gross and

went on to win the T. S. Eliot Prize with Bloodaxe collections, as did Jen Hadfield from Shetland, with her second collection. He has also sought to redress the neglect of marginalised poets, publishing important collected editions of writers such as

Martin Bell Martin Bell, (born 31 August 1938) is a British UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Ambassador, a former broadcast war Journalist, reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Ta ...

(1988), James Wright (1992),

(2000), Barry MacSweeney (2003), Martin Carter (2006),

Arun Kolatkar Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar (1 November 1932 – 25 September 2004) was an Indian poet who wrote in both Marathi and English. His poems are known for expressing the humour in everyday life. Kolatkar is the only Indian poet other than Kabir to be fe ...

(2010), A. S. J. Tessimond (2010),

Bernard Spencer Charles Bernard Spencer (1909 – 1963) was an English poet, translator, and editor. He was born in Madras, India and educated at Marlborough College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Marlborough he knew John Betjeman and Louis MacNeice ...

(2011) and Richard Murphy (2013), as well as a seminal readers' edition of Edward Thomas: ''The Annotated Collected Poems'' (2008) edited by

Edna Longley Edna Longley, (born 1940) is an Irish literary critic and cultural commentator specialising in modern Irish and British poetry. Early life and education Born in Cork in 1940, the daughter of mathematics professor T. S. Broderick and a Scott ...

. In 2014, his ten-year search to find and republish the poet Rosemary Tonks, who famously "disappeared" in 1979 after severing all contact with the literary world, bore fruit with her posthumously published ''Bedouin of the London Evening: Collected Poems & Selected Prose''. In 1985, Astley encountered translations in an American magazine of poems by Irina Ratushinskaya, a young Russian poet then imprisoned in a Soviet prison camp for the "crime" of writing and distributing poems a judge had called "a danger to the state". At the age of 28, she had been sentenced to seven years' hard labour. He commissioned a translator, David McDuff, to produce a book of her poetry in English, which he combined with documentary material on the poet's imprisonment obtained from

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

. It included extracts from a camp diary charting life in the "Small Zone", a special unit for women prisoners of conscience in Mordovia, where the poet was held. The resulting book, ''No, I'm Not Afraid'', was published in May 1986. An international campaign was mounted on her behalf, spearheaded by her own poetry, which led to her release in October 1986 on the eve of the

Reykjavík Summit The Reykjavík Summit was a Summit (meeting), summit meeting between President of the United States, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, held in Reykjavík, Iceland, on ...

, after

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

and

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

had been given copies of her book by

David Owen David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 to 1979, and later ...

. Astley also published Tony Harrison's ''v.'' (1985), a book-length poem set in a vandalised cemetery in Leeds during the miners' strike. Two years after its publication,

Richard Eyre Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre (born 28 March 1943) is an English film, theatre, television and opera director. Eyre has received numerous accolades including three Laurence Olivier Awards as well as nominations for six BAFTA Awards and two ...

's film of the work on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

sparked a national furore, not over Harrison's left-wing politics, but over his skinhead protagonist's use of "bad language". Astley's response was to assemble a new edition of ''v.'' (1989) including the poem with documentation of the newspaper and other media coverage which became a set text on cultural studies courses. Astley has commissioned books representing or addressing the poetry of particular generations or periods in British and Irish poetry, including the anthologies ''A Rumoured City'' (introduced by

Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, '' The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, '' Jill'' (1946) and '' A Girl in Winter'' (194 ...

, edited by Douglas Dunn, 1982), ''The New Poetry'' (edited by

Michael Hulse Michael Hulse (born 1955) is an English poet, translator and critic, notable especially for his translations of German novels by W. G. Sebald, Herta Müller, and Elfriede Jelinek. Life and works Hulse was educated locally in Stoke-on-Trent unti ...

, David Kennedy and David Morley, 1993)'', The Bloodaxe Book of 20th Century Poetry from Britain and Ireland'' (edited by

, 2000), ''The New Irish Poets'' (edited by Selina Guinness, 2004), ''Voice Recognition'' (edited by James Byrne and Clare Pollard, 2009), ''Identity Parade: New Poets from Britain and Ireland'' (edited by Roddy Lumsden, 2010) and ''Dear World & Everyone In It: new poetry in the UK'' (edited by Nathan Hamilton, 2013). In addition there have been books of essays, such as Sean O'Brien's ''The Deregulated Muse'' (1998), ''Strong Words'' (edited by W.N. Herbert and Matthew Hollis, 2000) and Deryn Rees-Jones's ''Modern Women Poets'' (2005).

Reception

As editor at Bloodaxe for more than 30 years, Astley has been credited with "revolutionising" and democratising poetry publishing in Britain. Praised for his "omnivorous inclusiveness", he has given readers "as wide a range as possible of contemporary poetry by all kinds of writers", in so doing bringing more readers to contemporary poetry. This involved overturning an earlier bias favouring Oxbridge-educated male writers from south-east England, and publishing leading poets from America, the Caribbean and Europe (including many collections and anthologies of translated poetry from France, Russia, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia in particular), alongside books by new and established poets from all parts of Britain and Ireland, the latter ranging from modernists

and

J.H. Prynne Jeremy Halvard Prynne (born 24 June 1936) is a British poetry, British poet closely associated with the British Poetry Revival. Prynne grew up in Kent and was educated at St Dunstan's College, Catford, and Jesus College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow ...

to performance poets John Agard and

Benjamin Zephaniah Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023) was a British writer, dub poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing. Over his lifetime, he was awarded 20 honorary doctorates in recognition of his c ...

. He has sought to open up publishing opportunities for women poets, "not because they are women poets but because they are outstanding writers by any standard. For many years Bloodaxe has been unusual in having a poetry list which is 50:50 male: female", and being "responsive to the changing literatures of Britain and of other countries", so that in 2010 it was possible for a leading Black British writer,

, to observe that "a single imprint, Bloodaxe Books, publishes nearly all the poets not with specialist black and Asian imprints, while several other prominent UK poetry publishers do not publish any black or Asian poets from Britain". Astley has been called "the UK's leading anthologist", best known for ''Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times'' (2002), Britain's biggest selling anthology of contemporary poetry since publication, one of several books he has published aimed at broadening the readership of contemporary poetry and re-igniting the interest of readers who haven't read much poetry since school. A US edition was published in 2003 by Miramax, launched by Astley in New York as a book "for people who know they love poetry and for people who think they don't" at a reading shared with

Meryl Streep Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career ...

Liev Schreiber Isaac Liev Schreiber ( ; born October 4, 1967) is an American actor. He has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award as well as nominations for nine Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. Schreiber's early film roles incl ...

, Maria Tucci,

Nina Cassian Nina Cassian (pen name of Renée Annie Cassian-Mătăsaru; 27 November 1924, in Galați – 14 April 2014, in New York City) was a Romanian poet, children's book writer, translator, journalist, accomplished pianist and composer, and film critic. ...

, Philip Levine, Glyn Maxwell,

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he has been both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humani ...

, Sharon Olds, Alice Quinn and

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; May 9, 1938 – January 9, 2023), known as Charles Simic, was a Serbian American poet and poetry co-editor of ''The Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for '' The W ...

.''Staying Alive'' was a controversial book, popular with readers and booksellers. He has since published the second and third anthologies in his ''Staying Alive'' trilogy, ''Being Alive'' (2004) and ''Being Human'' (2011), which were followed by ''Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy'' (2012). In 2008 he published ''In Person: 30 Poets'', filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce, claimed to be "the world's first DVD-anthology", consisting of films on two DVDs of six hours of readings by 30 poets with all the texts included in the accompanying anthology. This was followed in 2017 by ''In Person: World Poets'', a larger compilation featuring 14 hours of readings and features on DVD covering 59 poets from around the world, again with all the texts included in the book.

Writing

In 1982 Astley received an Eric Gregory Award from the

Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. Membership of the society is open to "anyon ...

for a short collection of his own poems'', The Speechless Act'', later published by the Mandeville Press in 1984. His first book-length collection, ''Darwin Survivor'' (Peterloo Poets, 1988), was given a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. A second book of poems,'' Biting My Tongue'', followed in 1995. He has also published two novels, ''The End of My Tether'' (2002/2003), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and ''The Sheep Who Changed the World'' (2005).

Bibliography

As editor (selected list)

* ''Ten North-East Poets'' (

, 1980) * ''Poetry with an Edge'' (

, 1988, 1993) * ''Tony Harrison: a critical anthology'' (

, 1991) * ''New Blood'' (

, 1999) * ''Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times'' (

, UK 2002,

Miramax Books Miramax Books was an American publishing company started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films to publish movie tie-ins. Between 2000 and 2005, while Jonathan Burnham was its president and editor-in-chief, the imprint published the memoir ...

, USA 2003) * ''Pleased to See Me: 69 Very Sexy Poems'' (

, 2003) * ''Do Not Go Gentle: poems for funerals'' (

, 2003) * ''Being Alive: the sequel to 'Staying Alive (

, 2004) * ''Passionfood: 100 love poems'' (

, 2005, 2014) * ''Bloodaxe Poetry Introductions I: Alexander, Alvi, Dharker, Kay'' (

, 2006) * ''Bloodaxe Poetry Introductions 2: Enzensberger, Holub, Sorescu, Tranströmer'' (

, 2006) * ''Bloodaxe Poetry Introductions 3: Gilbert, Hirshfield, Kinnell, Merwin'' (

, 2007) * ''Soul Food: nourishing poems for starved minds'', with Pamela Robertson-Pearce (

, 2007) * ''Earth Shattering: ecopoems'' (

, 2007) * ''In Person: 30 Poets'', with DVDs of films by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (

, 2008) * ''Being Human: the companion anthology to 'Staying Alive' and 'Being Alive (

, 2011) * ''Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy'' (

, 2012) * ''The World Record: international voices from Southbank Centre's Poetry Parnassus'', with Anna Selby (

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is an arts centre in London, England. It is adjacent to the separately owned National Theatre and BFI Southbank. It comprises the three main performance spaces – the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Purcell R ...

, 2012) * ''The Hundred Years' War: modern war poems'' (

, 2014) *
Ploughshares
' vol. 41 no.1 (Spring 2015) * ''Funny Ha-Ha, Funny Peculiar: a book of strange & comic poems'' (

, 2015) * ''In Person: World Poets'', with DVDs of films by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (

, 2017) * ''Land of Three Rivers: the poetry of North-East England'' (

, 2017) * ''Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive'' (

, 2020)

Novels

* ''The End of My Tether'' (Flambard Press, 2002; Scribner, 2003) * ''The Sheep Who Changed the World'' (Flambard Press, 2005)

Poetry collections

* ''The Speechless Act'' (The Mandeville Press, 1984), Eric Gregory Award * ''Darwin Survivor'' (Peterloo Poets, 1988), Poetry Book Society Recommendation * ''Biting My Tongue'' (

, 1995)

References

External links

Book Trade Lives: British Library oral history interview

Interview with Neil Astley. ''The Wolf''
number 5, December 2003

* ttp://www.spreadtheword.org.uk/resources/view/free-verse-report Discussion for Spread the Word between Neil Astley and Bernardine Evaristo (2006)
Article by Neil Astley in the ''New Statesman''
"Give poetry back to people" 23 October 2006
Article by Neil Astley on his ''Being Human'' anthology
Poetry Book Society online blog, March 2011
Christina Patterson: ''About Neil Astley''
''Ploughshares'', 126 (Spring 2015)
Extended introduction by Neil Astley to ''Ploughshares'' transatlantic poetry issue
''Ploughshares'' blog (22 April 2015) {{DEFAULTSORT:Astley, Neil Living people 1953 births Academics of Newcastle University Alumni of Newcastle University English book publishers (people) English emigrants to Australia English poetry People from Darwin, Northern Territory People from Portchester Poetry anthologies Poetry publishers