Michael Schmidt
Poet, novelist, critic, editor & anthologist
Michael Schmidt OBE FRSL is the founder and editorial director of Carcanet Press and PN Review and is Professor of Poetry at the University of Glasgow.
He is a poet, novelist, critic and anthologist. His Selected Poems, acclaimed Resurrection of the Body, and Collected Poems are published by Smith/Doorstop.
Michael is an authoritative figure in contemporary poetry, a hugely experienced public speaker and a powerful and engaging reader of his own work.
In 2006, Michael was awarded an O.B.E. for services to literature.
CHOOSING A GUEST
1
Whom shall I invite? The centrepiece
Is five red apples on a walnut dish.
The table takes their sheen. Whom
Shall I invite to what the trees provide?
2
Before I choose a guest I go outside.
It is evening almost, almost winter here:
Under the apple tree a pungent mud of fruit,
One bough fractured by the wealth it bears.
3
I have chosen. And will she come?
It is like necromancy to invite
The guest who yesterday, the day before,
Laughing, turned to darkness at my board.
4
Absence I will invite. I will invite
The morning birds, and I will not ask her.
The birds will not come, and she will not come.
The sheen will pass from fruit into the dark.
5
It is too late to eat, too late to ask.
I shall say grace but break no bread.
The lamp will not be lit; I shall sit still
As shadow takes the taste instead.
6
Here is my bed. How the scent of apples clings
To my breathing, and the scent of her.
I am alarmed
How nothing leaves me, though the light is gone.
– Michael Schmidt, Collected Poems (2009)
Smith/Doorstop titles
Selected Poems 1972–1997 (book, 1997) received a PBS recommendation.
The Resurrection of the Body (book, 2007)
Collected Poems (book, 2009)
Audio
Michael Schmidt at The Poetry Archive
Reviews
'Schmidt is always a stringent poet, never shy of painful truth' – Helen Dunmore, The Observer
'Vibrant, radiant, Michael Schmidt's poetry is steeped in modernist tradition (Yeats and Eliot) and questingly new. The result is a passionate discourse that is at once earthy and numinous, from which "flows that unusual grace which is rooted in muscle, / Which comes from the marrow and lymph, which is divine.' – John Ashbery
'There is enough love, attention to detail and creative energy in Schmidt for us to expect something astonishing from him in the future.' – Sebastian Barker
Publicity
Complimentary copies of Smith/Doorstop titles are available for publicity or review, and a 40% discount is provided for trade sales. (Contact us using the form here.)
To book a Smith/Doorstop poet for a reading, talk or interview, contact The Poetry Business on marketing@poetrybusiness.co.uk or phone 0114 346 3037. (If the poet has their own agent or representation, we will be able to put you in touch with them.)
