Tim Turnbull

Biography
Tim Turnbull is currently Writer in Residence at HMP Castle Huntly and works as a freelance tutor and as a consultant specialising in adult literacy publishing. He has also been Writer in Residence at HMP Edinburgh (2006-2009) and HMYOI Werrington (2004-2006) and the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival for 2006. He was awarded the Arts Foundation's Performance Poetry Fellowship in January 2006.

WHAT WAS THAT? (DONUT PRESS, 2004)

 * Magma -- Writing light verse with real gravity, a full collection from Turnbull will be something to look forward to.
 * The Slab -- This, Turnbull’s follow-up to 2001’s “Work”, is a pamphlet that showcases his ability to embrace an amazing range of subject and form, and a unique dexterity that enables him to blend the crude and the profound like few other poets.
 * New Hope International Review -- Names and name-dropping are prevalent in the poetry. The reader might recognise names as eclectic as Patience Strong, Yeats, Ma Broon and Tennyson, but the numerous references to other named characters might drive you, as it did me, off to the reference books.

STRANDED IN SUB-ATOMICA (DONUT PRESS, 2005)

 * Magma -- This is extraordinary writing. Throughout Stranded In Sub-Atomica Turnbull uses traditional form to handle contemporary subject matter. The apparent ease of his voice is underpinned by craft and subtlety.
 * Eyewear -- Whatever a number of Turnbull’s poems might owe to Armitage, however, becomes largely irrelevant when one considers the scope, ambition and variety of much of the collection. 

CALIGULA ON ICE AND OTHER POEMS (DONUT PRESS, 2009)

 * Dr Fulminare's Queftionable Arts -- Turnbull is eminently accessible. He does bold rhymes, caustic commentary and mucky jokes, all in an affable deadpan.