After his first collection - SOFT KEYS - Michael Symmons Roberts was hailed by Les Murray as 'a poet for the new, chastened, unenforcing age of faith that has just dawned'. The metaphysical concerns of that first book are central to this new collection, written in a language at once philosophical, sensuous and lyrical. From a doctor who washes lungs to the structure of genes, from mythical hounds born to fire to a cat's-eye souvenir from a smashed-up road, the scope of this collection is impressive. Whatever the subject, these poems are concerned with elemental themes, with the mapping of experience, and the search for sparks of life at its heart. At the heart of RAISING SPARKS are two sequences - 'Smithereens' and 'Quickenings' - which form part of a continuing collaboration with the composer James MacMillan; the former set as a song cycle and the latter as amajor choral piece. These sequences - alongside intamate lyrics and dramatic meditations on creation, redemption and the end of time - show a poet of enormous range and depth.
Michael Symmons Roberts was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1963. He has published eight collections of poetry and received a number of accolades including the Forward Prize, the Costa Poetry Award and the Whitbread Poetry Prize. His Selected Poems was published in 2016. As a librettist, his work has been performed in concert halls and opera houses around the world, and he is an award-winning broadcaster and dramatist. He is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, his Quartet for the End of Time: On Music, Grief and Birdsong was published in 2025.
