Kelly Grovier is an American poet.

Grovier was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 and Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He received his doctorate from Oxford University in 2005 after writing a thesis on the eighteenth-century adventurer and philosopher, John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822).

Grovier is co-founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review

European Romantic Review

European Romantic Review or ERR is a scholarly peer-review journal founded in 1990 and devoted to the interdisciplinary study of nineteenth-century culture.The journal was co-founded by the poet and literary critic Kelly Grovier...

and former editor of the literary magazine Oxford Poetry

Oxford Poetry

Oxford Poetry is a literary magazine based in Oxford, England. It is currently edited by Hamid Khanbhai and Thomas A Richards.Founded in 1910 by Basil Blackwell, its editors have included Dorothy L...

.

His first collection of poems, A lens in the palm, was published by Carcanet Press

Carcanet Press

Carcanet Press is a publisher, primarily of poetry, based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1969 by Michael Schmidt.Carcanet Press is now in its fourth decade. In 2000 it was named the Sunday Times millennium Small Publisher of the Year...

 in January 2008. His poems have also appeared in Poetry Review, P. N. Review

P. N. Review

Launched as Poetry Nation, a twice-yearly hardback, in 1973, PN Review - now an A4 paperback - began quarterly publication in 1976 and has appeared six times a year since 1981...

, Poetry London

Poetry London

Poetry London is a London-based literary periodical. As Poetry London: A Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism it was founded by Tambimuttu and the first issue was dated January/February 1939.In a new form the magazine is still in print....

, New Welsh Review

New Welsh Review

-History:Founded in 1988 as successor to The Welsh Review , Dock Leaves, and The Anglo-Welsh Review , New Welsh Review is Wales’s foremost literary magazine in English...

, Planet (magazine)

Planet (magazine)

Planet is a quarterly cultural and political magazine that looks at Wales from an international perspective, and at the world from the standpoint of Wales....

, Quadrant (magazine)

Quadrant (magazine)

Quadrant is an Australian literary and cultural journal. The magazine takes a conservative position on political and social issues, describing itself as sceptical of 'unthinking Leftism, or political correctness, and its "smelly little orthodoxies"'. Quadrant reviews literature, as well as...

, Stand, and The Mays. Lyric and philosophical, Grovier's poetry is haunted by the ghosts of Augustine

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

 and Spinoza, Jakob Boehme and Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart

Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. , commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia in the Holy Roman Empire. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris...

, Giotto and Auguste Rodin

Auguste Rodin

François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...

.

He has written widely on the British Romantic poets, especially William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

, and John Keats

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...

.

Grovier is a regular reviewer of arts and literature for The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

and the Times Literary Supplement.

In 2004 Grovier joined the Department of English at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth

University of Wales, Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth University is a university located in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding Member Institution of the former federal University of Wales. As of late 2006, the university had over 12,000 students spread across seventeen academic departments.The university was founded in 1872 as...

. His narrative history of London's notorious Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...

, The Gaol, was published in July 2008 and was broadcast by BBC Radio

BBC Radio

BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

 as Book of the Week

Book of the Week

Book of the Week is a BBC Radio 4 series broadcast daily on week days. Each week the selected book, always a non-fiction work, is read in five episodes; each fifteen-minute episode is broadcast in the morning and repeated overnight . The Act of Worship replaces the morning broadcast on...

 from 14–18 July. The abridgement was read by the classical stage actor Jasper Britton

Jasper Britton

Jasper Britton, in is an actor.Britton is the son of veteran actor Tony Britton, and Danish sculptor and member of the World War II Danish Resistance Eva Castle Britton...

. The Gaol was Pick of the Week for both the Radio Times

Radio Times

Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...

 (14 July) and BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 (20 July), and Pick of the Day for The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 (12 July) and The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

(13 July).