Bio

Alan Wickes grew up  in Northumberland, England. He studied history of art and English literature at Manchester and Open University. In 2013 Alan retired from his role as a senior manager in further education. Since then he has completed an M.A. in humanities, specialising in critical theory and creative writing. For the past two years he has spent about half his time travelling in southern Europe, and the remainder at home in Derbyshire developing his writing and pursuing other interests, such as seeking-out unfrequented and overlooked bits of England to explore, or simply spending time in the garden and enjoying family life.

Over the past two decades Alan has become increasingly interested in writing metrical verse, adopting a contemporary idiom within formal verse settings.  His work reflects the growing interest in writing poetry using received form, a trend noted throughout the English speaking world during the first decade of this century. Alan Wickes' work is concerns the exploration of place and a return to narrative, as opposed to broadly imagist approaches and a pre-occupation with the language of poetry itself which characterised much of poetry in the latter decades of the twentieth century. Alan Wickes' recent work attempts to vocalise landscape, and concerns utterance as much as the written word. His 'voceti' project uses virtual environments to embed poetry within place, and reflects the influence of eco-criticism and psychogeography on his work.

Alan Wickes' poetry has been published in over fifty print and on-line journals in the UK, America, and Australia. His work has appeared on both sides of the Atllantic, featuring in Aesthetica, Znine, Worm, Loch Raven Review, The Chimera, Envoi, The Raintown Review and Soundzine, as well as appearing as a 'spotlight poet' in 'The Hypertexts'.

His sonnets have won Ware Poets national competition twice, in 2004 and 2009. Cannon Poets awarded first prize to his poem "Parting Shots" in November 2006. His sonnet sequence 'Nighthawks', published in the Raintown Review in 2012, was nominated for a Pushcart prize.

New York based Exot Books published Alan Wickes' chapbook, Prospero at Breakfast in November 2007. A more substantial, retrospective collection - 'voceti' featuring all his poetry published to date appeared in 2015 and is available in print through Amazon and as an ebook at Kindle store.