About

Jonathan Davidson was born in 1964 and grew up in Didcot, South Oxfordshire. He has lived for many years in Coventry and now lives in Birmingham.

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Poet & Writer

Jonathan Davidson is a poet, writer and literature activist. He lives in the English Midlands but works internationally. His poetry has been widely published and he has also written memoir and criticism. His radio dramas and adaptations have been broadcast by BBC Radios 3 and 4. Much of his work is focussed on how writing – especially poetry – is experienced by readers and listeners.   

Jonathan won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 1990 and his first collection of poetry, The Living Room, was published by Arc Publications in 1994. This was followed, seventeen years later, by Early Train (Smith|Doorstop, 2011). He has also published three poetry pamphlets, Moving the Stereo (Jackson’s Arm, 1993), A Horse Called House (Smith|Doorstop, 1997) and Humfrey Coningsby: Poems, Complaints, Explanations and Demands for Satisfaction (Valley Press, 2015), and an e-book Selected Poems (Smith|Doorstop, 2014). His combination of memoir and criticism, On Poetry, was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2018. He won first prize in the Cafe Writers Prize in 2014 and won the BBC Proms Poetry Prize in 2013.

He has had eight radio plays broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, along with radio adaptations of Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns and W.S.Graham’s The Nightfishing on BBC Radio 3. His stage adaptation of Mary Webb’s novel Precious Bane was produced by Interplay Theatre and toured extensively in 2008 and 2009. He has produced six poetry-theatre works, his most recent touring shows were The Hundred Years’ War (which toured in 2014/15) and Towards the Water’s Edge (which toured in 2016/17), both co-productions with Bloodaxe Books and the Belgrade Theatre Coventry.

He is director of the project management company Midland Creative Projects Limited, Joint-Founder of the Birmingham Literature Festival and Founder and Chief Executive of Writing West Midlands.