Sean O'Brien Biography | Poet

Sean O'Brien (born 19 December 1952 in London) is a British poet, critic, playwright. Prizes he has garnered include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize (2001 and 2007) and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only two poets (the other being John Burnside ) to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems (The Drowned Book). He grew up in Hull, was educated at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge and has lived in Newcastle upon Tyne since 1990.