Niall Campbell

Niall Campbell (b. 1984, South Uist) published his first collection, Moontide, a month after the birth of his son: the poems in Noctuary (a journal of the night hours) were written in whatever moments he could snatch from the larger responsibilities of parenthood. ‘The world, I think, seems larger in my first collection, while in this book it is often just the size of a dark room’, he writes.

One of the inspirations for Noctuary were the Elegies of Douglas Dunn: as Dunn’s work is a book of ‘love strewn through with sadness’, Campbell envisaged his own poems as being animated by love intermingled with ‘the hope, the tenderness, the exhaustion’ of being a father. He lives in Manchester, and is currently collaborating on an opera with the composer Anna Appleby.

Forward Prizes History:

  • 2019 Forward Prizes for Best Collection, shortlisted for Noctuary (Bloodaxe Books)
  • 2014 Forward Prizes for Best First Collection, shortlisted for Moontide (Bloodaxe)

    





            Niall Campbell in Conversation with the Forward Prizes

            Read 'The Night Watch'

            'The Night Watch' Animation