Poet Art Allen in Conversations

Arthur Allen (b. 1994) is the author of Some Things I Do Not Know, published by Shearsman Books in 2026. His other work includes Twenty Twenty: Treatments for Cut Flowers (runner-up, Erbacce Prize for Poetry 2021), The Nurseryman (winner, Eyelands Book Awards 2019 Poetry Prize), and the chapbook Here Birds Are (semi-finalist in the Claudia Emerson Poetry Award 2016).

Arthur’s poem ‘Ratlets’ appeared in the 2025 anthology Vocal Inhabitants from Strange Region Press, and ‘Buzzcut’ was included in the New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology for 2024. His poem ‘Some things I do not know’ was chosen as a finalist in the Snowbound Chapbook Award 2023, and shortlisted in Wigtown’s Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize 2023, and the 2023 Live Canon Poetry Competition. In 2022, Arthur was included on the prestigious long-list for The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition, selected out of 17,800 entries. He was long-listed by Glyn Maxwell for the AUB International Poetry Prize 2022, and his poem ‘Unhomely Places’ appears in Responses to Pale Blue Dot by Voyager 1, the 2022 anthology in a series from Pilot Press responding to works of art made during the AIDS crisis. Arthur was specially commended by Owen Sheers in the Wells Festival of Literature 2021 Open Poetry Competition, chosen by the Black Mountain Press as one of The 64, Best Poets of 2019 and won third prize in the Ambit Annual Poetry Competition 2018.

He is the only English translator of Maria Wine, forgotten Swedish author of poetry books that were her ‘spiritual diaries’.

Arthur holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, funded by a College Research Award from their School of Literature, Languages and Culture, with focus on grief and semiotics. He works as a bookseller.

Creative Conversations is supported generously by The Ferguson Bequest. Professor Thomas Ferguson (1900-1977), Henry Mechan Chair of Public Health (1944-64), bequeathed his estate to the University, with the instruction that the money should be used to foster the social side of University life.

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