About Mark

Mark Robinson is a poet, critic and writer whose New and Selected Poems (How I Learned to Sing) will be published in June 2013. This is his first major publication for some years, mainly due to his work at Arts Council England from 2000 to 2010, but builds on a substantial record. He is a highly experienced performer of his work, both in ‘traditional’ poetry reading formats and with music and film. He has also worked with visual artists and digital media. He enjoys translation and writing to commission. Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Mark is keen to combine his work with the arts and cultural sector through Thinking Practice, which includes planning, facilitation, coaching, research and writing of a different kind, with poetry performances, residencies and commissions, especially where these can take him to usual settings he might not otherwise get into to stimulate him, and where his unusual combination of experience, skills and perspectives can be of use to stimulate others.

Books

How I Learned to Sing: New & Selected Poems (Smokestack, 2013)

21 Ways of Looking at the Sponsors Club (Community Foundation 2012) Commissioned book of prose and poetry to mark 21^st birthday of Sponsors Club for Arts & Business

A Balkan Exchange: 8 British and Bulgarian Poets (Arc 2008) Translations of Georgi Gospidinov, Kristin Dimitrova, Nadya Radulova and VBV, plus new poems on Bulgaria

Running Good Writing Groups (with Rebecca O'Rourke) (Revised version, National Association of Writers Groups, 2003)

Words out Loud: 10 essays on the poetry reading (Editor, Stride 2002)

Half A Mind (Flambard, 1998) – full-length collection of poems

Twelfth Song, Hulke Aktunc (co-translator, Poetry Ireland, 1998) - collection of poems

Water Music Lale Muldur (co-translator, Poetry Ireland, 1998)

Running Good Writing Groups (with Rebecca O'Rourke) (University of Leeds, 1996)

Gaps Between Hills (with Dermot Blackburn & Andy Croft) (Scratch, 1996) – full-length collection of poems shortlisted for Northern Electric Arts Awards

The Horse Burning Park (Stride, 1994) – full-length collection of poems

A Hole Like That: 13 Cleveland Poets (editor) (Scratch, 1994)

Magazine & Literary Journals: A Guide (Cleveland Arts, 1994)

The Domesticity Remix (Scratch 1992)

Rigmarole (Hybrid 1990)

Anthologies

Poems have been featured in many anthologies, some of which are:

North by North East (Ed. Andy Croft and Cynthia Fuller, Iron Press)

So Also Ist Das: Contemporary British Poetry (University of Salzburg) – selection of poems translated into German

Red Sky At Night: British Socialist Poetry (Ed. Adrian Mitchell and Andy Croft, Five Leaves Press)

Magnetic North (New Writing North)

Poems in Your Pocket: Imaginative Approaches to GCSE Poetry (Mike Ferguson, Pearson) – students have to compare one of Mark’s poems with poems by Louis Macneice and Robert Frost, allowing him to say teenagers have compared his ‘Buttocks’ to ‘The Road Not Taken’!

Voices for Kosovo (ed Rupert Loydell, Stride)

Other projects and commissions

The Dunno Elegies – a live performance piece developed for a scratch series at Arc, Stockton, combining a poetic sequence, music and film

Performing Literature – British Council project in Sofia, Bulgaria, October 2003, collaborating with Bulgarian writers and the leading Bulgarian band Blu-Balu,  reating site specific performances in venues including Sofia Central Prison, University and a nightclub.

Millenium Movies – a series by Media 19 for Tyne Tees/Northern Arts featuring a short film of my poem ‘By Rote’. Won a North East RTS Award in 2001.

BON: Book of the North – a collaborative cd-rom project instigated by W.N. Herbert and New Writing North, also included exhibition at Hartlepool Art Gallery

Gaps Between Hills – photo/poem exhibition produced via Scratch, toured nationally including to Poetry Library, South Bank Centre

Sorted for trees: Cleveland Community Forest residency/commission for 2 billboard poems

Writing Residencies and lecturing

Programme Director, Arts & Humanities, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Durham (1999-2000) – included teaching creative writing and curriculum development

Durham Literature Festival Writer in Residence, 1996 – including community workshops

Guest lecturer Northumbria University Creative Writing MA, (1997-2004)

Adult Education tutor in creative writing and literature: University of Leeds (1994-97)

Northern Arts Residency, Annaghmakerig Tyron Guthrie Centre, Ireland 1996

Arts Council/Home Office Writer-in-Residence HMP Wealstun (1995-96)

Editing and publishing

SCRATCH: In 1989 Mark founded SCRATCH international poetry magazine, which he edited and designed until 1999. SCRATCH also published 11 books. One was shortlisted for the prestigious Forward Poetry Prize Best First Collection in 1993. Scratch published many leading writers early in their careers, such as Paul Farley and Jean Sprackland.

Mudfog Press: Mark was one of the founders of this Teesside-focused press.

Readings and performances

Mark has performed at many, many venues and festivals including South Bank Centre, Troubadour Poetry, Port Elizabeth Opera House, National Arts Festival South Africa, Durham Literature Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Saarbrucken Poetry Conference, Salzburg Poetry Festival, Huddersfield Poetry Festival, Morden Tower, Colpitts Poetry, Richmond Book Festival, Dead Good Poets Liverpool,

Thinking Practice

Mark also runs Thinking Practice, an influential arts and cultural consultancy, through which he has worked across the UK and in Australia, Canada and South Africa. Mark is well-known internationally in the arts and cultural sector for his work on adaptive resilience, and for his writing on cultural policy, including an influential blog. Key publications include Making Adaptive Resilience Real (Arts Council England, 2010) and The Role of Diversity in Building Adaptive Resilience (Arts Council England, 2011). Mark’s non-poetry work gives him a wide range of writing-related skills which are potentially useful in workshops and residencies.

Board Memberships

Mark is a board member of AVANE (producer of the AV Festival), Seven Stories (the National Centre for Children’s Books) and chair of Swallows Foundation UK (connecting artists and organisations in North East England and Eastern Cape, South Africa).