Ken Smith was born in Rudston, East Yorkshire, the son of an itinerant farm labourer. He worked in Britain and America as a teacher, freelance writer, barman, magazine editor, potato picker, BBC reader and creative writing fellow, and was writer-in-residence at Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1985-87. He received America\u2019s highly prestigious Lannan Literary Award for Poetry in 1997, and a Cholmondeley Award in 1998.<\/p>\n
Ken Smith was the first poet to be published by Bloodaxe, with his pamphlet Tristan Crazy<\/em> in 1978. The Poet Reclining: Selected Poems 1962-1980<\/em> (Bloodaxe, 1982; reissued 1989) covers the first half of his writing career. Four of his collections, Terra<\/em> (1986), Wormwood<\/em> (1987), The heart, the border<\/em> (1990) and Tender to the Queen of Spain<\/em> (1993), were Poetry Book Society Recommendations. His last separate collection, Wild Root<\/em> (1998), a Poetry Book Society Choice, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. All these collections are included in his second Bloodaxe compilation, Shed: Poems 1980-2001<\/em> (2002). He edited Klaonica: poems for Bosnia<\/em> (Bloodaxe Books, 1993) with Judi Benson, and with Matthew Sweeney co-edited Beyond Bedlam<\/em> (Anvil Press Poetry, 1997), a book of poems by mentally ill people.<\/p>\n He died on 27 June 2003 . His last poems were published in You Again: last poems & other words<\/em> (Bloodaxe Books, 2004) along with other uncollected work, tributes from other poets, photographs, a biographical portrait and interviews covering the whole range of his life and work. His Collected Poems<\/em> was published by Bloodaxe in October 2018, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the publication of Tristan Crazy<\/em>, and with what would have been his 80th birthday.<\/p>\n