Ian McMillan
Encyclopedia
- For the former Scottish footballer, see Ian McMillan (footballer)Ian McMillan (footballer)John Livingstone "Ian" McMillan is a former Scottish footballer who played for , and the Scotland national team.-Airdrieonians:...
. For the photographer, see Iain MacmillanIain MacMillanIain Stewart Macmillan, was the Scottish photographer famous for taking the cover photograph for The Beatles' album Abbey Road in 1969. After growing up in Scotland, he moved to London to become a professional photographer. He used a photo of Yoko Ono in a book he published in 1966 and was invited...
.
Ian McMillan (born 21 January 1956 in Darfield, South Yorkshire
Darfield, South Yorkshire
Darfield is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. It lies east of the town of Barnsley. It had a population of 8,066 at the 2001 UK Census.-History:...
) is a British poet, journalist, playwright and broadcaster who has continued to live in Darfield
Darfield, South Yorkshire
Darfield is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. It lies east of the town of Barnsley. It had a population of 8,066 at the 2001 UK Census.-History:...
.
Background
McMillan graduated from North Staffordshire Polytechnic in 1978. He started performing on the live poetry circuit in the 1970s. He has had several volumes of poetry published for both adults and children. He is an enthusiastic advocate of poetry. In addition he has had journalism published in Q magazine and Mojo magazineMojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
, and writes a weekly column in his home town's local newspaper, The Barnsley Chronicle. He has the unique honour of being the first poet in residence to a football club, his hometown Barnsley FC. His play Sister Josephine Kicks the Habit, based on the work of fellow Yorkshireman Jake Thackray
Jake Thackray
John Philip "Jake" Thackray , was an English singer-songwriter, poet and journalist. Best known in the late 1960s and early 1970s for his topical comedy songs performed on British television, his work ranged from satirical to bawdy to sentimental to pastoral, with a strong emphasis on storytelling,...
premiered in 2005. In June 2010 McMillan was appointed poet-in-residence at English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
.
TV and radio
McMillan hosts the weekly show The Verb and Proms variation Adverb on BBC Radio 3BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
, "dedicated to investigating spoken words around the globe". According to the Radio Times, he is the 22nd Most Powerful Person in Radio. He is also a regular roving contributor to BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
Today Programme where he was Election Laureate. During January 2007, he presented a BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
series on the art of writing, Ian McMillan's Writing Lab, talking to a range of writers including Julian Barnes
Julian Barnes
Julian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer, and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending...
, Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill
Mark Ravenhill is an English playwright, actor and journalist.His most famous plays include Shopping and Fucking , Some Explicit Polaroids and Mother Clap's Molly House . He made his acting debut in his monologue Product, at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe...
, Howard Jacobson
Howard Jacobson
Howard Jacobson is a Man Booker Prize-winning British Jewish author and journalist. He is best known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters.-Background:...
and Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen
Michael Wayne Rosen is a broadcaster, children's novelist and poet and the author of 140 books. He was appointed as the fifth Children's Laureate in June 2007, succeeding Jacqueline Wilson, and held this honour until 2009....
. He has appeared on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's long-running panel game Just A Minute
Just a Minute
Just a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons. Its first transmission on Radio 4 was on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The Radio 4 programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003....
.
He is a regular guest on Newsnight Review, The Mark Radcliffe Show, The Today Programme, You & Yours, The Culture Show, Never Mind The Full Stops and Have I Got News For You?. He narrates The Museum on BBC 2 on Thursdays and has also been the voice behind adverts for Persil
Persil
Persil is a brand of laundry detergent currently and originally made by Henkel & Cie; but which is now also licensed for manufacture, distribution, and marketing in several countries by the Unilever Corporation. Henkel and Unilever both manufacture their own formulations...
and Oats so simple.
Poetry competitions
McMillan is a regular judge of poetry competitions. In December 2006, McMillan judged the "Central Trains Poetry Competition" and the winners, from the Royal Grammar School WorcesterRoyal Grammar School Worcester
The Royal Grammar School Worcester is an independent coeducational school in Worcester, United Kingdom. Founded before 1291, it is one of the oldest British independent schools....
, were awarded with a signed copy of his poem "Take me on a Christmas Trip on Central Trains" at Birmingham Snow Hill Station
Birmingham Snow Hill station
Birmingham Snow Hill is a railway station and tram stop in the centre of Birmingham, England, on the site of an earlier, much larger station built by the former Great Western Railway . It is the second most important railway station in the city, after Birmingham New Street station...
. He was also a judge in the Foyle Young Poets Awards 2008, and went as a teacher with the winners for a week to The Hurst, an Arvon centre based in Shropshire, as part of their prize. He judged the 2009 Cardiff International Poetry Competition for the award ceremony in June.
In 2005, as Poet Laureate for the Three Cities (Nottingham, Leicester and Derby), he was involved in the Three Cities Create and Connect scheme, which included a regional writing competition. The project resulted in a now-scarce publication, A Tale of 3 Cities : New Writing from Derby, Leicester and Nottingham. McMillan contributed a foreword and two original pieces, "Here.Now.Then" and "The Laureate Reflects" as well as co-authoring (with six regional writers) "Three Cities Chain Poem".
Yorkshire dialect work
In 2007, McMillan published a book named Collins Chelp and Chunter: a Guide to the Tyke Tongue. This was a compilation of words that are used in the Yorkshire dialect as well as a few pieces of Yorkshire humour and illustrations. Many words are pinned down to specific areas of Yorkshire or specific towns or villages; one word, lenerky, that means "soft or floppy", is even ascribed to Grange Moor, a very small village in KirkleesKirklees
The Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. It has a population of 401,000 and includes the settlements of Batley, Birstall, Cleckheaton, Denby Dale, Dewsbury, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Kirkburton, Marsden, Meltham, Mirfield and Slaithwaite...
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
near Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
between the towns of Barnsley
Barnsley
Barnsley is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Dearne, north of the city of Sheffield, south of Leeds and west of Doncaster. Barnsley is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, of which Barnsley is the largest and...
and Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
.
Books
- Batteries Not Included: 36 Poems Poetry Leeds, 1980
- The Changing Problem Carcanet, 1980
- An Anthology from Versewagon (with John Turner and Martyn Wiley) Versewagon Press, 1982
- Now it Can be Told Carcanet, 1983
- How the Hornpipe Failed and Other Poems Rivelin Grapheme, 1984
- Six: The Versewagon Poetry Manual (editor) Rivelin Grapheme, 1985
- Tall In The Saddle Doorstop Books, 1986
- Selected Poems Carcanet, 1987
- More Poems Please, Waiter, and Quickly! Sow's Ear, 1988
- Overstone (with David Harmer and Martyn Wiley) Arnold Wheaton, 1988
- Unselected Poems Wide Skirt Press, 1988
- Against the Grain Nelson, 1990
- A Chin?: Poems Wide Skirt Press, 1991
- Radio 5 Poems Twist In The Tale, 1993
- Yakety - Yakety - Yakety - Yak! : Poems (with Martyn Wiley) Twist In The Tale, 1993
- Breathless (editor) Write Around, 1994
- Dad, the Donkey's On Fire Carcanet, 1994
- Primary Colours (editor with Elizabeth Carter) Swaledale Festival, 1996
- Elephant Dreams (with Paul Cookson and David Harmer) Macmillan (Sandwich Poets 3), 1998
- I Found This Shirt: Poems and Prose from the Centre Carcanet, 1998
- Just Like Watching Brazil Yorkshire Art Circus, 1999
- Perfect Catch Carcanet, 2000
- The Very Best of Ian McMillan Macmillan Children's Books, 2001
- The Invisible Villain Macmillan Children's Books, 2002
- Ideas Have Legs: Ian McMillan vs Andy Martin FUEL, 2006
- Chelp and Chunter: How to Talk Tyke (illustrated by Alex Collier) Collins, 2007
- Talking Myself Home: My Life in Verses John Murray, 2008
- A Tale of Three Cities(with Les Baynton, David Duncombe and others) Arts Council, 2005