Arthur Allen (b. 1994) is the author of Twenty Twenty: Treatments for Cut Flowers (runner-up, Erbacce Prize for Poetry 2021) and The Nurseryman (winner, Eyelands Book Awards 2019 Poetry Prize), as well as the chapbook Here Birds Are (semi-finalist in the Claudia Emerson Poetry Chapbook Award 2016).
Arthur’s poem ‘Ratlets’ appeared in the 2025 anthology Vocal Inhabitants from Strange Region Press, and ‘Buzzcut’ was included in the New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology for 2024. His work was shortlisted for the Cinnamon Press Literary Awards 2024 and the iOTA Shot Pamphlet Awards 2024, longlisted for the Plaza Poetry Prize 2024, and the Live Canon Collection Prize 2024. His poem ‘Some things I do not know’ was chosen as a finalist in the Snowbound Chapbook Award 2023, and shortlisted in Wigtown’s Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize 2023, and the 2023 Live Canon Poetry Competition. In 2022, Arthur was included on the prestigious long-list for The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition, selected out of 17,800 entries. He was long-listed by Glyn Maxwell for the AUB International Poetry Prize 2022, and his poem ‘Unhomely Places’ appears in Responses to Pale Blue Dot by Voyager 1, the 2022 anthology in a series from Pilot Press responding to works of art made during the AIDS crisis. Arthur was specially commended by Owen Sheers in the Wells Festival of Literature 2021 Open Poetry Competition, chosen by the Black Mountain Press as one of The 64, Best Poets of 2019 and won third prize in the Ambit Annual Poetry Competition 2018.
He is the only English translator of Maria Wine, forgotten Swedish author of poetry books that were her ‘spiritual diaries’.
Arthur holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, funded by a College Research Award from their School of Literature, Languages and Culture, with focus on grief and semiotics. He works as a bookseller.
Education
University of Edinburgh, PhD Creative Writing, 2019-2024
University of Oxford, MSt Creative Writing, 2015-17 (Distinction)
University of East Anglia, B.A. (Hons) English Literature, 2011-14
Twenty Twenty:
Treatments for Cut Flowers
‘ I do not mean to tell this story
as if it is the only one. ’
Available now from Erbacce Press.