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Peter Bennet taught in secondary and further education, including work with redundant steelworkers following the closure of Consett Steel Works, and spent 16 years as Tutor Organiser for Northumberland with the Workers' Educational Association. He lived for 33 years near the Wild Hills o'Wanney in Northumberland, in a cottage associated with the ballad writer James Armstrong, author of Wannie Blossoms. He now lives in North Shields. His BloodaxeThe Glass Swarm (2008) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
Peter Bennet considers the moments of interaction between past and present, fairytale and fact, using folklore’s staples to cast light on contemporary concerns. His watchful, thicketed landscapes, the stateliness of his language, all fit themselves perfectly to winter. This is fireside poetry. -- Sarah Crown * The Guardian * Bennet often tips his hat to his literary heroes, wielding the instructive tone of Norman MacCaig, the direct address of W.S. Graham, and Robert Browning’s sophisticated handling of the dramatic monologue and acoustic texturing, but it is to the imagining of a poetic place that Bennet gives his all. -- Soumyaroop Majumdar * READ * Bennet really does know, very precisely, how to contrive the entry of the powers of place and history into his poems without depriving them of idiosyncrasy, surprise, or their darker natures. -- Sean O’Brien * Sunday Times *
