WHO IS BEN BARTON?

For over a decade Ben Barton has had a voice in the small presses, publishing hundreds of poems on both sides of the Atlantic. Recently called "one of Britain's most promising young poets" by the Three Lights Gallery, his critically-acclaimed first collection was The Red Book.

Ben will release two new books in 2008.
The Hospital was mostly written in a bedridden morphine haze, and is a terrifying account of Ben's experiences on a NHS ward. A hundred hardback copies will be printed in a limited, signed edition. Also, a small chapbook of 21 confessional poems – drop, anchor – has been published by the erbacce press.

Since 2005 Ben has been working on Prospect, a collaboration with Jennifer Harris, bringing together poems and photographs composed in Dungeness, beside the Romney Marshes in Kent. This body of written and visual work is inspired by Derek Jarman, who cultivated his famous shingle garden at Prospect Cottage. The photographs and accompanying poems were first exhibited at the Ashford Gallery, and have since been published in many small press publications including The Coffee House, Decanto, The Delinquent, iota, Poetry Monthly, South and Upstairs at Duroc, and online at Caduta and The Poetry Kit. A full-length Prospect book is still a work in progress.

Ben grew up on the Romney Marsh and joined the writer's group Marsh Ink as a teenager. His first success was winning the Folkestone Ottakar's/Faber Poetry Competition two years consecutively (1997 & 1998). The second year his poem was also a winner in the national competition. At seventeen he launched haiku_txt – one of the first projects in Britain to send poetry by SMS to subscribers' mobile phones. He then studied theatre for two years, and continued to write and publish from his flat in a converted hospital in Dover.

Ben has worked as a copywriter, journalist, editor, proofreader and actor. He has performed at the Canterbury Festival and on BBC radio, and was awarded a prize by Poetry Update. In 2004 he appeared in the short film No One Reads Poetry for the BBC Video Nation project.

Ben Barton circa 1998

Ben's first collection The Red Book brings together his small press poems published from 1996-2006. It was selected as Book of the Month by The Poetry Kit, Britain's premier poetry website. An article in Writers' Forum entitled 'We Pick Six Books To Beat The Richard and Judy List' selected it as the "best poetry book of the summer"

Ben works as a writer for a holiday company, which often gives him opportunity to travel. He recently wrote a new poetry book, Bamboo Curtain, during a visit to China. He is also working on a manuscript of his short form poetry entitled Pleasures of the Bitten Peach.

He lives with Scott, his partner of six years, in a small Victorian cottage beside the beautiful Kent Downs. He also creates short super 8 films.

Recent & forthcoming publications