John Freeman recently received the Roland Mathias Prize for Poetry at the Wales Book of the Year Awards for his tenth collection, What Possessed Me (Worple Press). Lauded by critics as ‘a remarkable volume of honest and engaging writing’ (Tears in the Fence) and ‘a collection lit with humour and openness’ (London Grip), the poems in the book provide powerful, witty and moving reflections on his relationships with people, place and time.

John was born in Essex, grew up in South London and studied English at Cambridge. He lived in Yorkshire before moving to Wales where he taught English Literature and Creative Writing at Cardiff University for many years. He now lives in Cowbridge.

Other collections include The Light Is Of Love, I Think: New and Selected Poems (Stride), and Landscape With Portraits (Redbeck). Stride also published a book of his essays, The Less Received: Neglected Modern Poets.

In 2013 John Freeman won third prize in the National Poetry Competition