Anthony Anaxagorou is a British-born Cypriot poet, writer, publisher and educator.

Early life

Anthony Anaxagorou is of Cypriot origin. His mother is from

Nicosia Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia and Lefkoşa, is the capital and largest city of Cyprus. It is the southeasternmost of all EU member states' capital cities. Nicosia has been continuously inhabited for over 5,500 years and has been the capi ...

and his father from

Famagusta Famagusta, also known by several other names, is a city located on the eastern coast of Cyprus. It is located east of the capital, Nicosia, and possesses the deepest harbour of the island. During the Middle Ages (especially under the maritime ...

. Anaxagorou grew up in North London and attended

Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet is a boys' grammar school in Barnet, northern Greater London, which was founded in 1573 by Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and others, in the name of Queen Elizabeth I. It is consistently ranked as one o ...

Literary Career

In 2002, Anaxagorou won the inaugural Mayor of London's Respect Poetry Slam (now known as SLAMbassadors UK, the national youth slam championship). In 2003, he appeared alongside fellow poet

Kae Tempest Kae Tempest (formerly Kate Tempest) is an English spoken word performer, poet, recording artist, novelist and playwright. At the age of 16, Tempest was accepted into the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon. In 2013, he w ...

on Young Nation, presented by

Richard Blackwood Richard Clifford Blackwood (born 15 May 1972) is a British actor, presenter, and rapper. Between 2015 and 2018, he played Vincent Hubbard in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. In 2020, he began portraying the role of Felix Westwood in the Chan ...

, where he performed a number of poems themed around social issues relating to young people. After an extended break from poetry, Anaxagorou began self-publishing in 2008. In 2010, he toured the UK supporting

MOBO Modern Baseball (sometimes abbreviated as MoBo) was an American emo band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, consisting of Bren Lukens, Jake Ewald, Sean Huber, and Ian Farmer. The band formed in 2012 at Drexel University and released their first ...

-winning artist Akala on the

DoubleThink Doublethink is a process of indoctrination in which subjects are expected to simultaneously accept two conflicting beliefs as truth, often at odds with their own memory or sense of reality. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocris ...

tour. In 2015, Anaxagorou was awarded the 2015 Groucho Maverick Award for his poetry and fiction. His second poetry collection, ''After the Formalities'' (Penned in the Margins, 2019), was shortlisted for the

T. S. Eliot Prize The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize for poetry awarded by the T. S. Eliot Foundation. For many years it was awarded by the Eliots' Poetry Book Society (UK) for "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or t ...

2019. The collection was a

Poetry Book Society Recommendation The Poetry Book Society (PBS) is a British subscription-based book club dedicated to selecting, recommending and publicising new poetry books. Every quarter, it selects two Poetry Book Society Choices and four Poetry Book Society Recommendations. ...

and was a ''Guardian'' poetry book of the year. In 2019, he was made an honorary lecturer of the

University of Roehampton The University of Roehampton, London, formerly Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, is a public university in the United Kingdom, situated on three major sites in Roehampton, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. The University traces its r ...

. In 2020, he published ''How To... Write It'' with Merky Books, a practical guide combining writing advice, craft and memoir. His poetry collection ''Heritage Aesthetics'' won the 2023

Ondaatje Prize The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize is an annual literary award given by the Royal Society of Literature. The £10,000 award is for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that evokes the "spirit of a place", and is written by someo ...

. In 2023 Anaxagorou was elected as a 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 ...

Out-Spoken and Out-Spoken Press

In 2012, Anaxagorou founded Out-Spoken, a monthly poetry and live music night, where he remains Artistic Director. In 2019, Out-Spoken started a long-term residency at London's

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 ...

. In 2015, he founded Out-Spoken Press, an independent publisher of poetry and critical writing that has published titles from authors including

Raymond Antrobus Raymond Antrobus is a British poet, educator and writer who has been performing poetry since 2007. In March 2019, he won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry.Sabrina Mahfouz Sabrina Mahfouz is a British-Egyptian poet, playwright, performer and writer from South London, England. Her published work includes poetry, plays and contributions to several anthologies. Education Mahfouz earned a BA degree in English Liter ...

, Fran Lock,

Mukahang Limbu Mukahang Limbu (born 2001) is a Nepalese British poet. Life and career Born in Nepal, Limbu moved to the UK aged 6. He attended Oxford Spires Academy where he was taught by the poet Kate Clanchy. While still at school, he won the Sunday Times/F ...

and

Richard Georges Richard Georges (born 1982) is the first poet laureate of the British Virgin Islands. He is the current president of the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College and a founding editor of MOKO: Caribbean Arts & Letters. Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, G ...

. The press has awarded an annual Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry since 2015. There are winners in several categories (in 2023 these were "Page poetry", "Poetry in film" and "Performance poetry"), and an overall winner.

Literary works

* ''A Difficult Place To Be Human'' – 2012 * ''The Blink That Killed The Eye'' (

Jacaranda ''Jacaranda'' is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas while cultivated around the world. The generic name is also used as the common name. The species ' ...

, 2014) * ''It Will Come To You'' EP - 2013 * ''Heterogeneous: New and Selected Poems'' (Out-Spoken Press, 2016) * ''After the Formalities'' (Penned in the Margins, 2019) * ''How To... Write It'' (Merky Books, 2020) * ''Heritage Aesthetics'' (Granta Poetry, 2022)

References

External links

Author's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anaxagorou, Anthony 1983 births Living people English male poets English people of Greek Cypriot descent Writers from London