Oliver Marlow Poetry

Oliver Marlow first published his poetry at St Andrew’s University, where his poems were included in an anthology celebrating 50 years of students’ writing. He traces his poetic journey back to the four years he spent there living on its magical coastline.

After university he taught for ten years at Christ’s Hospital, the former school of Samuel Taylor Coleridge among other poets. During that time his verse appeared in four more anthologies including a collection of new writing from poets across the globe published by Carcanet Press.

Since then Oliver Marlow has continued to write, trying to capture moments when the numinous is revealed in the everyday.

‘An exceptional and individual talent. I felt present at a genuine birth, that the spare versification and the sensuous accuracy were a real source of pleasure and discovery.’ Charles Tomlinson

‘His painterly approach to plants and trees is a sort of triumph in words. But painterly isn’t the right word, because all the senses are involved in his perception, and there are always hints of the super-sensual also.’ Michael Hamburger

“I like these poems very much. I like their delicacy, observation and playfulness; their delight in placing sounds exactly. They are unusual poems for today . . . discoveries that begin with innocence and move on to experience.” George Szirtes

“My main response is to bleat, in an old jargon, ‘valid!’ There is nowhere for the contents of the visual field to diffuse to. And, of course, it’s not just a visual affair: his verbal pips are forced to squeak in new tones just as Emily Dickinson’s were.” Roy Fisher

‘I like the spare simplicity of vocabulary and form, and the way he uses his eyes to actually look at and see the natural world around us.’ David Gascoyne