Richard John Price (born 1966 in
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...
, England) is a British poet, novelist, and translator. From 1988 to 2024 he was a librarian at the British Library, London.
Life
He grew up in
Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire () (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. Renfrewshire is located in the west central Lowlands. It borders East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire, and lies on the southern ba ...
where he went to Kilmacolm Primary School, Houston Primary School, and Gryffe High School.
He studied at
Napier College, in journalism, and graduated the
University of Strathclyde
The University of Strathclyde () is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal charter in 1964 as the first techn ...
in English and Librarianship, with a
joint
A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...
first
First most commonly refers to:
* First, the ordinal form of the number 1
First or 1st may also refer to:
Acronyms
* Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array
* Far Infrared a ...
.
He earned a PhD at University of Strathclyde.
Career
He has worked with artists in sculpture, digital art, artist's books and music. His collaborators include David Annand, Julie Johnstone, Simon Lewandowski, Karen Bleitz,
Caroline Trettine and Ronald King.
He was a lyricist and vocalist in the musical projects Mirabeau and, later, The Loss Adjustors.
His translations include the
Guillaume Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent.
Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...
poems in ''Eftirs / Afters'' (with translations of other French modernists by Donny O'Rourke, Au Quai, 1996) and the
Louise Labé poems in ''Lute Variations'' (Rack Press, 2005), the latter collected in ''Rays'' (Carcanet, 2009).
In the 1990s he co-edited the poetry magazines ''Gairfish'' (with
W. N. Herbert), ''Verse'' (with Robert Crawford, Henry Hart, David Kinloch, and others) and ''Southfields'' (with Raymond Friel). At this time he also ran the poetry publisher Vennel Press with Leona Medlin, publishing books by W.N. Herbert, Elizabeth James, David Kinloch, Peter McCarey, Medlin and Price themselves, and others. He was one of the group associated with
Informationist poetry, coining the phrase. He introduced Informationist ideas in 1991 in the magazine ''Interference'' and, later, in his introduction to the anthology of Informationist poetry ''Contraflow on the Superhighway'', co-edited with Herbert (Gairfish and Southfields, 1994). In 1994 he successfully completed his PhD at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, on the novelist of the inter-war years Neil M. Gunn and his engagement with the tragic. Price's introduction to Gunn's work, ''The Fabulous Matter of Fact'', had been published in 1991 by Edinburgh University Press. He currently edits the magazine ''Painted, spoken''.
From 2003 to 2010 he was Head of Modern British Collections at the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
, London, leading the curatorial team responsible for the UK printed books and periodicals collection from 1914 onwards as well as UK web archiving. He also curated exhibitions that included ''
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...
: The Page is Printed'' (2004) and ''The Possibility of Poetry: From Migrant magazine to artists' books'' (2007). He has written on the history of the modern
literary magazine in the United Kingdom, co-authoring with David Miller ''British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of 'Little Magazines (British Library, 2006).
''British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of 'Little Magazines'' (British Library, 2006)
/ref> From 2010 to 2014 he was the Head of Content and Research Strategy at the Library, before becoming the first Head of Contemporary British Collections there, a department devoted to print, digital, manuscripts and sound.
''Lucky Day'' which reflects on the disability of his daughter, who has Angelman syndrome
Angelman syndrome (AS) is a genetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 15,000 individuals. AS impairs the function of the nervous system, producing symptoms, such as severe intellectual disability, developmental disability, limited to no ...
, was shortlisted for the Forward First Collection Prize, the Jerwood Aldburgh Prize and the Whitbread prize
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in United Kingdom, UK and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first ...
.
''Rays'' (Carcanet), containing many love poems as well as variations on the sonnets and canzone of Louise Labé and Guido Cavalcanti
Guido Cavalcanti (between 1250 and 1259 – August 1300) was an Italians, Italian poet. He was also a friend of and intellectual influence on Dante Alighieri.
Historical background
Cavalcanti was born in Florence at a time when the comune was b ...
was shortlisted for a Scottish Book Award.
In 2010 he published ''The Island'' (Two Ravens Press) a novel about a father and young daughter who, as an act of revenge, steal a car. It draws on characters who first appeared in his short story collection ''A Boy in Summer'' (Neil Wilson / 11:9, 2002).
In 2011 the musical project for which he was the principal lyricist, Mirabeau, released its first album, Golden Key. Several of the songs are settings of poems from his earlier poetry collections while others are closer to rock and folk genres of songwriting. Mirabeau comprised Price (as lyricist and vocalist) and the singer-songwriter Caroline Trettine with contributions by various musicians including Ian Kearey (of The Blue Aeroplanes
The Blue Aeroplanes are an English rock band from Bristol, the mainstays of which have been Gerard Langley, brother John Langley, and dancer Wojtek Dmochowski. All three had previously been members of the New wave music, new wave "art band" A ...
).
In 2012 his poem "Hedge Sparrows" was chosen to represent Great Britain in the Olympics project the Written World, and recorded for BBC radio by the actor Jim Broadbent
James Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English actor. A graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in 1972, he came to prominence as a character actor for his many roles in film and television. He has received various accolades ...
.
In the same year his collection ''Small World'' (Carcanet) was published, a collection of poems about fatherhood and daughters and their changing relationship, and, in a final sequence, a catastrophe which brings all the lives in the book into perspective. ''Small World'' won Price's first major award, winning in the poetry category of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards. A poem from the collection, 'An old drawer up beyond the children', was produced as an animation by Michael Hughes.
In 2013 Price was Poet in Residence at the University of Coimbra, in association with Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal.
In 2013 and 2014 he toured with Iain Bamforth, David Kinloch, Peter McCarey as "The Last Men on Mercury", appearing in Manchester, London, Geneva, Stasbourg and Glasgow and featuring guest poets including Lucy Burnett, Dorothy Lehane, Hannah Lowe, and Peter Manson. In 2014 the Slovakian film-maker Viera Čákanyová made a short film about his work, filming while he was on tour in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland.
In 2015 the second (and final) Mirabeau album was released, Age of Exploration. Price would later form The Loss Adjustors with Roberto Sainz de la Maza, who appeared as a guitarist on many Mirabeau tracks, and with singer Elisa de Leon.
In 2016 he published ''Is This A Poem?'' (Molecular Press), selected essays on lyric poetry, little magazines, and artist's books.
In 2017 his collection ''Moon for Sale'' (Carcanet) was published and subsequently shortlisted for the Saltire Society's Poetry Book of the Year. That year his collaboration with the artist Ronald King, ''Sedna and the Fulmar'' was also published, by Circle Press. Its focus on an episode in the Inuit spiritual world would be amplified later in his next Carcanet collection ''The Owner of the Sea: Three Inuit Sequences Retold'' (Carcanet, 2021).
In 2017 he convened meetings with artists Egidija Čiricaitė and Sophie Loss, and British Library curator Jeremy Jenkins, which led to the Artists Books Now series of live events at the Library, 2018-2019, where book artists presented their books in front of an audience and discussed their work.
In 2018 he collaborated with the artist Julie Johnstone to produce the satirical work, ''Digital'' (essence press). At this time he began to work with Roberto Sainz de la Maza who composed the music, produced and played on the resulting album by The Loss Adjustors, ''The World Brims'' (2020). It features Price on vocals with the singer Elisa de Leon. All of the lyrics are written by Price, with many of the tracks based on poems in ''Moon for Sale'' as well as on newer, uncollected work.
In 2021 ''The Owner of the Sea'' was published, becoming a Scotsman Newspaper Book of the Year. In 2022 he collaborated with the artist Simon Lewandowski on a book of poems and images examining the life of dating apps, ''Tinderness'' (Wild Pansy Press). This was followed by ''Late Gifts'' (Carcanet, 2023) a collection centred on the relationship between a father and a son.
In 2024, after 36 years at the British Library, he took early retirement to concentrate on his writing career.
Awards and Shortlistings
*1987 Winner, Keith Wright Memorial Prize for Poetry, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
*1988 Winner, Keith Wright Memorial Prize for Poetry, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
*1988 Winner, STV Creative Writing Prize, Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde
*1997 Paul Hamlyn Poetry Award, Runner Up for pamphlet ''Hand Held''
*2005 Forward Felix Dennis First Collection Prize (shortlist) for ''Lucky Day''
*2005 Whitbread Poetry Book of the Year (shortlist) for ''Lucky Day''
*2005 Jerwood/Aldeburgh First Collection Prize (shortlist) for ''Lucky Day''
*2008 Scottish Arts Council
The Scottish Arts Council (), was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the Scottish Government as well as National Lottery funds ...
Poetry Book of the Year Award (shortlist) for ''Greenfields''
*2010 Scottish Arts Council
The Scottish Arts Council (), was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from the Scottish Government as well as National Lottery funds ...
Poetry Book of the Year Award (shortlist) for ''Rays''
*2013 Winner, Creative Scotland SMIT Poetry Book of the Year for ''Small World''
*2017 Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year (shortlist) for ''Moon for Sale''
Works
Poetry
*''Tube Shelter Perspective'' (Southfields, 1993)
*''Sense and a Minor Fever'' (Vennel, 1993)
*''Marks & Sparks'' (Akros, 1995)
*''Hand Held'' (Akros, 1997)
*''Perfume & Petrol Fumes'' (Diehard, 1999)
*''Frosted, Melted'' (Diehard, 2002)
*''Lucky Day'' (Carcanet, 2005, )
*''Greenfields'' (Carcanet, 2007, )
*''Rays'' (Carcanet, 2009, )
*''Small World'' (Carcanet, 2012, )
*''Moon for Sale'' (Carcanet, 2017)
*''The Owner of the Sea: Three Inuit Stories Retold'' (Carcanet, 2021)
*''Late Gifts'' (Carcanet, 2023)
Film
*''Richard Price'', directed by Viera Čákanyová, (Česká televize, 2015)
Artist's Books
*''Gift Horse'', images and design by Ronald King, poem by Richard Price, Circle Press, 1999
*''A Twenty-Piece Puzzle'', edition of three, visual art and design by Chan Ky-Yut, poems by Richard Price, Lyric Press, 2004.
*''The Mechanical Word'', five mechanical books by Karen Bleitz with poems by Richard Price, Circle Press, 2005.
*''little but often'', design by Ronald King, with poems by Richard Price, Circle Press, 2007
*''folded'', design by Julie Johnstone, text by Richard Price, essence press, 2008
*''Wake Up and Sleep'', images and design by Caroline Isgar, poems by Richard Price, 2009
*''Going, going, gone'', images and design by Ronald King, poems by Richard Price, Circle Press, 2013
*''Sedna and the Fulmar'', images and design by Ronald King, poems by Richard Price, 2017
*''Digital'', design by Julie Johnstone, text by Richard Price, essence press, 2018
*''Tinderness'', design and photographs by Simon Lewandowski, poems by Richard Price, Wild Pansy Press, 2022
Short stories
*''A boy in summer: short stories'', 11/9, 2002,
Novels
*''The Island'', Two Ravens Press,
Non-fiction
*''The Fabulous Matter of Fact: The Poetics of Neil M. Gunn'' Edinburgh University Press, 1991.
*David Miller, Richard Price (eds), ''British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography'' (Oak Knoll Press/The British Library, 2006).
*David Kinloch, Richard Price (eds), ''La Nouvelle Alliance: influences francophone sur la littérature écossaise moderne'' (Ellug, 2000)
*James McGonigal, Richard Price (eds) ''The Star You Steer By: 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 ...
and British Modernism'' (Rodopi, 2000)
*Richard Price, ''Is This A Poem?'' ssays on Modern Poetry, Poetry Magazines, and Artist's Books(Molecular, 2016).
Reviews
*
*
*
References
External links
Official Website
Poetry Recordings within Archive of the Now
Poetry Recordings within The Poetry Archive
The Loss Adjustors on Bandcamp
Profile at Scottish Poetry Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Price, Richard
1966 births
Living people
Print editors
Scottish male poets
Anglo-Scots
People from Renfrewshire
English male poets
People educated at Gryffe High School
Alumni of the University of Strathclyde
British translators
French–English translators