Raymond Antrobus MBE FRSL was born in London, Hackney to an English mother and Jamaican father. He is the author of Shapes & Disfigurements (Burning Eye, 2012) To Sweeten Bitter (Out-Spoken Press, 2017), The Perseverance (Penned In The Margins / Tin House, 2018), All The Names Given (Picador / Tin House, 2021), Signs, Music (Picador / Tin House, 2024).
His individual poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Guardian, Granta, Poetry Foundation, Lit Hub, London Review of Books, The Poetry Review, The Deaf Poets Society and elsewhere. In 2019 he became the first ever poet to be awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize for best work of literature in any genre.
Other accolades include The Ted Hughes Award, Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, PBS Winter Choice, A Sunday Times Young Writer of the year Award, Somerset Maugham Award and The Guardian Poetry Book Of The Year 2018, as well as a shortlist for The Griffin Prize, T.S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize. In 2018 he was awarded The Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, (Judged by Ocean Vuong), for his poem Sound Machine. Also in 2019 and 2021 his poems (Jamaican British, The Perseverance and Happy Birthday Moon) was added to the UK’s GCSE syllabus.
He is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works 3, Jerwood Compton and the Royal Society of Literature. He is also one of the world's first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word education from Goldsmiths University.
Raymond was a founding member of Chill Pill and Keats House Poets Forum. He is an Ambassador for The Poetry School, Arts Emergency and a board member for English PEN (an organisation that promotes freedom of expression and literature across frontiers). He is also an advocate for several D/deaf charities including Deaf Kidz International and National Deaf Children’s Society.
Raymond also writes for young readers. His debut children’s picture book Can Bears Ski? is illustrated by Polly Dunbar and is published in the UK by Walker Books (2021) and in the US/Canada by Candle Wick Press (2020). It was selected as a Ezra Jack Keats honouree winner in 2021. In 2022 it was selected for a Read For Empathy (primary) Collection Award. His second picture book Terrible Horses (2024) is illustrated by Ken WIlson-Max and was awarded a Kirkus starred Review.
In March 2021 Raymond hosted his first BBC Radio 4 Documentary (‘Inventions In Sounds’) produced by ‘Falling Tree Productions’ which won a Best Documentary Award at the 2021 Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Raymond has read and performed his poetry at festivals (Glastonbury, Latitude, BOCAS, etc) to universities (Oxford, Goldsmiths, Cambridge etc). In 2020 he completed residencies at Warwick University, University of East Angelia and Swansea University. In 2021 he performed at the Paralympic Homecoming ceremony at Wembley Stadium.
He has won numerous Poetry Slams (Farrago International Slam Champion 2010, The Canterbury Slam 2013 and was joint winner at the Open Calabash Slam in 2016).
His poetry has appeared on BBC 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, Channel 4, The Big Issue, The Jamaica Gleaner, The Guardian, TedxEastEnd among others.
“His monologues are stunning studies of voice and substance, and his lyric poems are graceful and finely crafted” - Kwame Dawes
“Raymond uses nostalgia for a place and a time, but resists sentimentality completely. He makes the reader/listener experience the moment with all the senses and very skilfully sets that up against a harsher reality” –
Imtiaz Dharker
photo credit; Caleb Azumah Nelson