Following last week’s appointment of prolific playwright and novelist Michael Frayn as Prose Editor, The Mays 2013 can proudly announce that this year’s Poetry Editor will be Griffin International Poetry Prize-winner, David Harsent.

Over four decades of innovative and incisive writing, Harsent has established himself as one of Britain’s leading poets. His latest original collection, Night, was short-listed for the T.S. Eliot Prize, as were prior works Legion and Marriage. He is also an accomplished translator: his most recent work is last year’s In Secret: Versions of Yannis Ritsos, and he has produced two volumes of Goran Simic’s Bosnian poems. Outside poetry, he has extensive experience working in theatrical and musical settings, with collaborations broadcast on television and performed at major European concert venues. Currently, Harsent is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and, like Prose guest-editor Frayn, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Harsent’s ease with working solo and in tandem makes him well-suited to edit this year’s Mays Anthology, for which the theme is ‘Play’ and the emphasis on thinking about the relations between writers and written pieces. Chloe Stopa-Hunt, co-editor of the Mays, comments, ‘"David Harsent’s expertly particularised poetic vision and command of form make him one of the most exciting British poets writing today. It’s an exceptional honour to be working with him on him the Mays Anthology, and aspiring poets in both Cambridge and Oxford will be energised by the knowledge that their work, if shortlisted, will be read by a poet of such undisputed eminence."

Submissions are currently open for The Mays 2013, and the deadline is the 2nd of March. More information and guidelines are available online: see the Mays Facebook page – www.facebook.com/themays2013 - or the Mays Tumblr feed - http://themays2013.tumblr.com/ - for details.