Geoff Hattersley (1956-2024)

Geoff Hattersley was a poet. His books included Don’t Worry (Bloodaxe, 1994), which drew much acclaim for its tragi-comic portrayals of blighted lives in the post-industrial landscape of the poet’s native south Yorkshire. Poems from Don’t Worry have been used as part of syllabuses in schools, universities and with the Open University. Harmonica (Wrecking Ball, 2003) included a sequence of poems based on the author’s five years’ experience as a machine operator in a plastic injection moulding factory, an exploration of how we all relate to the systems we find ourselves needing to survive in.

Geoff Hattersley was an experienced reader of his work and performed and recorded musical arrangements of his poems with guitarist and singer Michael Massey. He ran adult writers’ workshops for numerous organisations in settings ranging from school classrooms to a bus-station waiting-room. His poems have been broadcast on local and national radio. Back of Beyond (Smith/Doorstop, 2006) and Outside the Blue Hebium (Smith/Doorstop, 2012) retain the enthusiasm, humour and vigour that has characterised his work since it was first published in 1984.

Geoff Hattersley edited the independent literary magazine the Wide Skirt between 1986 and 1998, publishing more than 300 writers, many for the first time. He lived in Huddersfield with his wife, the poet Jeanette Hattersley. His most recent work was on a sequence of poems, which reflected his concerns over the rate of technological advances and the ways in which people relate to new technology.