Steve Griffiths

1949

Steve Griffiths was born in Trearddur Bay, Anglesey in 1949, grew up there and in Amlwch, lived in London most of his working life, and has returned there after ten years in Ludlow. Seven collections of poems between 1980 and 2016, with Rex Collings, Seren and Cinnamon, have their summation in Weathereye: Selected Poems (2019). His work has been widely broadcast and he has read in several countries, including a series of seven readings in New York in 2012. His poems have appeared in many anthologies, including recently the NHS anthology These are the hands. He is one of the hundred twentieth century Welsh poets writing in English featured in The Library of Wales ‘Poetry 1900-2000’ (2007, Parthian Books). He has a collection of new poems up his sleeve. After reading English at Cambridge at the end of the Sixties, he began a working life engaged with the consequences of, and some solutions to, poverty, inequality and poor health, first as a welfare rights worker in London, later as a researcher and consultant in social and health policy, in the twenty years from 1993 working freelance all over Britain for local and national government, health bodies, and charities. Working for central Government at the turn of the century, he was an architect of an annual billion-pound investment in supported housing while working at weekends on his poetic exploration of a fallible Utopia, An Elusive State. He later wrote studies on reducing emergency hospital admissions. In retirement, he has published several policy thinkpieces online, notably Dark times for those who cannot work (2010) and Challenging the Democratic Deficit (2018)