Biography - short version

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Michael was born in 1963 in Preston, Lancashire, UK.

His poetry has won the Whitbread Poetry Award,and been shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Forward Prize, and twice for the T.S. Eliot Prize. He has received major awards from the Arts Council and the Society of Authors.

His continuing collaboration with composer James MacMillan has led to two BBC Proms choral commissions, song cycles, music theatre works and an opera for the Welsh National Opera – ‘The Sacrifice’ – which won the RPS Award for opera.

His broadcast work includes ‘A Fearful Symmetry’ - for Radio 4 - which won the Sandford St Martin Prize, and ‘Last Words’ commissioned by Radio 4 to mark the first anniversary of 9/11.

He has published two novels, and teaches at the Writing School of Manchester Metropolitan University.