Tom Chivers

Tom Chivers is a writer, editor and promoter of poetry. Born 1983, raised in South London and educated at Oxford University, he currently lives in the East End of London, from where he draws inspiration for his work. As Director of live literature organisation Penned in the Margins, he has promoted numerous poetry events throughout the UK, including the Generation Txt tour and London Word Festival. He is also Associate Editor of international literary journal Tears in the Fence and used to present London’s only specialist poetry radio show on Resonance FM.

Tom’s creative work is published widely in magazines, including Fire, Stride, The London Magazine, Smoke, Nthposition, The Reader, The Libertine, Isis, X-Magazine, Trespass and The Wolf. His poems are included in the anthologies automatic-lighthouse (Tall Lighthouse, 2006) and Babylon Burning: 9/11 Five Years On (Nthposition, 2006) and have been translated into Serbian. He has also written for Arts Professional, Culture Wars, Poetry News and Poetry London.

Tom’s recent work is concerned with negotiating new relationships with a fluctuating, unstable city that is continually coming to terms with its multiple and conflicting identities. Reflecting this, his poems are often multi-vocal, and modulate between lyrical, conversational and descriptive registers. His debut collection is entitled How To Build A City and has been praised as ‘contemporary, inventive and substantial’ by poet and critic David Caddy.

In 2008 he was the first Poet in Residence at The Bishopsgate Institute, London.

 Related Sessions

Sunday 2 November 2008, 2.00pm Student Union
Poetry and Place



 Festival Buzz

"A rare opportunity to debate first hand with those involved in the great issues of our time."
Chris Rapley, director, Science Museum