To Fold the Evening Star

Ian McMillan is among the UK's most popular living poets. His books of poems, stories, and non-fiction have drawn audiences for almost forty years. Born in Barnsley in 1956, Ian became a freelance writer, performer and broadcaster in 1981. He worked for years with The Circus of Poets performance poetry group and Versewagon, the world's first mobile writing workshop, and then with Martyn Wiley as Yakety Yak. Since then he has worked in schools, theatres, arts centres, fields and front rooms. He is the presenter of BBC Radio 3's weekly poetry programme The Verb and has written comedy for radio and plays for the stage, and has worked extensively for BBC radio and television. He has collaborated widely with composers, artists and cartoonists. He is an honorary doctor of Sheffield Hallam University, Staffordshire University, York St John's University, Lancaster University, and Huddersfield University, and has been a Visiting Professor at Bolton University. Ian has been the poet-in-residence for English National Opera, The Academy of Urbanism, Humberside Police, and Barnsley FC. His many books of verse include The Changing Problem (Carcanet, 1980), Dad, the Donkey's On Fire (Carcanet, 1994), Perfect Catch (Carcanet, 2000), Talking Myself Home (John Murray, 2008), and Jazz Peas (smith-doorstop, 2014). He still lives in his hometown Barnsley.