Sam Gardiner (poet)

He was born in Portadown, Armagh but lived most of his life in England, living in London through the 1970s and moving north to the Grimsby / North Lincolnshire area in the 1980s where he lived out the rest of his life.[1] He first became well known in radical/literary circles as Trevor Gardiner, as part of Norman Hidden's Writers Workshop circle, where he was sub editor of New Poetry magazine and ghost-compiled Hidden's Over to You, a poetry anthology for students, for the English Speaking Board without formal credit, and whilst manager of the Poetry Bureau and later as editor of Poet's Yearbook.[2][3][4] Issues in his personal life saw him abandon his London life, and move initially to Cleethorpes.[5] He worked as an architect through the 80s, writing creatively about historic architecture in this time.[6] He came to national attention when he unexpectedly won the 1993 National Poetry Competition, which he had entered - almost as an afterthought - under the name Sam Gardiner, for his poem 'Protestant Windows'. The award was presented on January 17 by Miroslav Holub, and his poem read at the prize-giving event by Hull poet Sean O'Brien, and subsequently published in The Guardian.[7][8][9][2]

Following the win Sam Gardiner retired to write full time and published new work regularly across British, Irish and international poetry magazines.[1] He was Lincolnshire Millennium Laureate in 1999/2000, was repeatedly long listed for the Forward Prize, and won the Poetry Business pamphlet prize for his 'Picture Never Taken' in 2006. He became a key figure in local poetry circles around his adopted Grimsby, founding long running poetry groups in Louth and Lincoln in the 90s and Hull and Nunsthorpe in the 2000s.[8] After a long period 'under consideration' by Faber, Gardiner became frustrated and embarrassed by the prestigious publisher's failure to make a decision on his first collection, and withdrew his work in the hope he could publish a series of small press pamphlets. Instead he was picked up by Lagan Press who published a series of three long collections over the next 15 years Protestant Windows (2000), Night Ships (2006) and The Morning After (2011).[10] These collections found very strong markets in the UK, Ireland but particularly in the USA. Gardiner continued to publish prolifically in magazines, newspapers and journals. He died in 2016 of COPD.[1]