Michael Symmons Roberts spent his childhood in Lancashire before moving south with his family to Newbury in Berkshire in the early '70s. He went to comprehensive school in Newbury, then to Regent's Park College, Oxford to read Philosophy and Theology. After graduating, he trained as a newspaper journalist before joining the BBC in Cardiff as a radio producer in 1989. He moved with the BBC to London, then to Manchester, initially in radio, then as a documentary filmmaker. His last job at the corporation was as Executive Producer and Head of Development for BBC Religion and Ethics, before he left the BBC to focus on writing.
Symmons Roberts' family was passively secular, but in his early teens he became a thoroughgoing atheist. When he gained a place at Oxford, this led him to change his course to Theology and philosophy, and his college to a Christian one, simply so that he could talk believers out of their faith. But things did not go according to plan: "As university went on I got deeply into philosophy — and the philosophy completely undermined my atheism, by making me realize that there was no overarching objectivity, no Dawkinsian bedrock of common sense if you strip everything away. I realized that atheism was just as culturally conditioned as being a Catholic."[1]
The Oxford way of teaching, with its deconstructing, analytical approach, proved fatal, he says, to his assumption as "a naively dogmatic young atheist ... that atheism is exactly the same as 'common sense' or objectivity. I'm not saying that in psychological terms we can't be objective. I just mean that there is no framework of thought that can be completely objective. I have exactly the same problem with unquestioning religious dogmatism."[1]
A convert to Roman Catholicism, Symmons Roberts has been described by Jeanette Winterson as "a religious poet for a secular age", and by Les Murray as "a poet for the new chastened, unenforcing age of faith that has just dawned". Miguel Cullen described his " millimetric adjective, the air-tight, wool-swaddled image, and that child's forensic perception, (that) he never grew out of".[2]Alan Brownjohn wrote that his "religious poems ... seem designed for an age of doubt and DNA".[3] Although rooted in the English lyric tradition, his work draws on the language of science (especially genetics and genomics), theology and philosophy.
His fourth book of poetry, Corpus, was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for best collection, and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He had previously received the Society of Authors' Gregory Award for British poets under 30 and the K Blundell Trust Award, and was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize for his 2001 collection Burning Babylon. In 2007 he received a major Arts Council Writers Award. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the English Association, for services to the language arts. In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
His continuing collaboration with composer James MacMillan has led to two BBC Proms choral commissions, song cycles, music theatre works and a new opera for the Welsh National Opera, The Sacrifice, which won the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Award.
His work for radio includes 'A Fearful Symmetry' – for Radio 4 – which won the Sandford St Martin Prize, 'Soldiers in the Sun' – for Radio 3 – which won the Clarion Award, and 'Last Words' commissioned by Radio 4 to mark the first anniversary of 9/11. His first novel, Patrick's Alphabet, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2006, and his second, Breath, in 2008. He is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, a former trustee of the Arvon Foundation and a trustee of the Royal Literary Fund. He has judged many poetry awards including the Forward Prizes, the Eliot Prize and the Arvon International Poetry Prize.
BBC Radio 3 interview and reading for – 'Northern Drift' – 2022
BBC Radio 4 commissioned drama – 'Brimstone' – for 'Afternoon Play' – 2000
BBC Radio 4 commissioned drama – 'Cleaning the Pipes' – for 'Fact to Fiction' – 2006
BBC Radio 3 commissioned drama – 'Soldiers in the Sun' – 2007
BBC Radio 4 commissioned drama – 'Worktown' – for 'Afternoon Play' – 2008
BBC Radio 4 commissioned drama – 'Breath'- adaptation of MSR's novel for 'Friday Play' – 2008
BBC Radio 3 commissioned drama – 'Idylls of the King' – adaptation of Tennyson poem – 2009
BBC Radio 4 commissioned drama – 'A Man in Pieces' – for 'Afternoon Play' – 2010
BBC Radio 3 commissioned drama – 'Migrant Mother' – 2010
BBC Radio 4 commission – 'Last Words' – poem to mark 1st Anniversary of 9/11, performed by Sir Antony Sher, with music by John Harle.
BBC Radio 4 / World Service commissioned poem for Hiroshima Day – 'A Fearful Symmetry.' With Fiona Shaw, Robert Tear and BBC Philharmonic. Music James Whitbourn.
BBC Radio 2 commission – 'Behold the Man' – 6 part biography of Jesus. Performed by Derek Jacobi, repeated on BBC World Service.
BBC Radio 4 commission – 'The Wounds' – poem for Good Friday, performed by Simon Russell Beale, with music by James Whitbourn.
BBC Radio 4 commission – 'The Hurricane' – poem for Pentecost, performed by Fiona Shaw, with music by James Whitbourn.
BBC Radio 4 commissioned poem – 'Crossing the Dark Sea' with composer James Whitbourn, to mark D-Day anniversary. With Christopher Eccleston and Katherine Jenkins.
