Poet,
broadcaster, biographer and more recently playwright, Simon Rae has
been a free-lance for as long as he can remember. He won the National
Poetry Competition in 1999, having twice been a runner-up. He has also
won a major Gregory Award and a Southern Arts Literature Bursary. For
ten years he wrote a regular topical poem for the Guardian, which
yielded two collections, Soft Targets, illustrated by Willie Rushton (Bloodaxe,
1991) and Rapid Response (Headland, 1997). Other titles are listed in
the publications section.
His poems have appeared in
a variety of publications: TLS, Observer, New Statesman, Poetry
Review, London Magazine, Leviathan, etc, and have been included in
such anthologies as Give Me Shelter, (Bodley Head, 1991), Klaonica:
Poems for Bosnia (Bloodaxe, 1993), Bearing Witness (Orchard,1995) and
The Gift: New Writing for the NHS (Stride 2002), along with various
collections of new work published by the Arts Council, P.E.N. and the
British Council.
His work for radio included
presenting Poetry Please (BBC Radio 4) and many other programmes for
both Radio 4 and Radio 3. He also wrote the award-winning A Memory
Lost (a dramatized feature on John Clare), and 20,000 Frenchmen under
the Sea (a history of the Channel Tunnel in the nineteenth century).
In 1998 he published the definitive
biography of W.G.Grace, and followed that with It's Not Cricket, A
History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright Cheating in the
Noble Game, and he has edited a number of anthologies, including The
Faber Book of Drink, Drinkers and Drinking (1991) and News That Stays
News, The Twentieth Century in Poems (Faber,1999)
His first stage play, A Quiet Night
In, set on Millennium night, was performed at the Bristol Old Vic
(Basement) and again at the Finborough Arms, London in 1999. Grass, a
modern version of John Clare's escape from his first asylum, was
performed at the Etcetera Theatre in 2001 and won an Edinburgh Fringe
Highlight in 2002, while his work in progress, The Bodysnatchers,
about Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his circle, had two rehearsed
readings at the Old Vic, London. A new play, Rose, will be produced in
the spring of 2003, and he will also being taking a further new work
to Edinburgh in August. He is a founder member of Top Edge Theatre
Productions, a company devoted to new writing for performance.
Poetry
Caught on Paper: Cricket
Poems (Renn & Thacker, 2002)
Empires (illustrated Matthew Ludgate)
(Previous Parrot Press, 2001)
The Face of War (illustrated Ronald
Searle) (Previous Parrot Press, 1999)
Rapid Response: Poems from the
Guardian 1991-1996 (Headland, 1997)
Allotment (illustrated Miriam
MacGregor) (Prospero Poets, 1996)
Listening to the Lake
(illustrated
Sue Cave) (Previous Parrot Press, 1993 )
Thatcher's Inferno (illustrated
Willie Rushton) (Smith/Doorstop, 1992 )
Soft Targets (illustrated Willie
Rushton) (Bloodaxe, 1991)
Calendar (illustrated Brian Partridge, Sue
Cave) (Redlake Press, 1990)
Seren Poets 2 , 1990
Great Tew (illustrated the
Brotherhood of Ruralists) (Unidentified Flying Printer, 1989)
Faber
Introduction 5, 1982
Biography
/ Sport
It's Not
Cricket: A History of Skulduggery, Sharp Practice and Downright
Cheating in the Noble Game (Faber, 2001)
W.G.Grace: A Life (Faber, 1998)
Anthologies (as
Editor)
News That
Stays News: The Twentieth Century in Poems (Faber, 1999)
The Faber Book
of Christmas, 1996
The Faber Book of Murder, 1994
The Faber Book of
Drink, Drinkers and Drinking, 1991
The Orange Dove of Fiji: Poems for
the World Wide Fund for Nature (Hutchinson, 1989)
Work
for Performance
Plays
2002
Grass (Oxford, London,
Edinburgh - winner Fringe Highlight award)
The Bodysnatchers rehearsed
readings at the Old Vic (London)
2001
Grass (The Et Cetera, London)
1999
A Quiet Night In (Basement, Bristol Old Vic; Finborough Arms,
London)
Music
2002
The Angry Garden (composer
Michael Stimpson) performed St John's Smith Square
1996
Requiem
(composer Sue Casson) performed Edinburgh & London
Radio
1996
Not at Dorking (BBC Radio
4)
1995
Who Shall Bind the Infinite? (BBC Radio 4)
1994
A Memory Lost
(BBC Radio 4)
1993
20,000 Frenchmen under the Sea (BBC Radio 4)
