Harry Man

Harry Man is an award-winning poet, playwright and translator. His work has been published in newspapers and literary journals nationally and internationally and has been featured on BBC Radio 4. His first pamphlet, Lift, won the Unesco Bridges of Struga award and was shortlisted for a Best Poetry Pamphlet Saboteur award. Together with artist Sophie Gainsley he wrote Finders Keepers (Sidekick Books, 2016) a combination of poems and illustrations on endangered species. Finders Keepers was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes award for New Work in Poetry and a Saboteur award for Best Collaborative Work. Deretter (‘Thereafter’) a book of concrete elegies written in collaboration with the Norwegian poet Endre Ruset included two poems that won the Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation and was published as a pamphlet as Utøya Thereafter (Hercules Editions, 2021).

Additionally Harry Man won a Northern Writers award and has been reviewed in Poetry London, by the Poetry Book Society and in Magma among other places. His poetry has been translated into eleven languages including Slovak, Swedish, Turkish, Dutch, Chinese, Arabic and German. Alongside his work as a poet, Harry is a children’s playwright for interactive dance theatre company, Fully Booked Theatre. His plays have been performed at Stockton International Riverside Festival, Dance City and Greenbelt Festival among others. He runs creative writing workshops in schools, libraries, museums and community centres throughout the country and teaches on the postgraduate MSt in Creative Writing at Oxford University. He lives in County Durham with his partner the Canadian contemporary dance choreographer Jennifer Essex.