Michael Ogilvie Imlah, better known as Mick Imlah, poet and literary critic, was born 26th September 1956 in Lewisham Hospital, with a twin sister, Fiona. Whilst his parents were both originally from Abderdeen, the Imlah family relocated from Bromley in Kent shortly after the twins' birth to Milngavie near Glasgow, where Mick attended the local primary school. After a decade or so, the family moved back to Kent and Mick attended Dulwich College from 1968. Whilst at Dulwich he wrote poems as well as short stories for the school magazine The Alleynian.

In 1976, Mick went on to read English at Magdalen College, Oxford, where his tutors included John Fuller and Alan Hollinghurst. After graduating with a first in 1979, Imlah embarked upon a DPhil on Arthurian myth in Victorian poetry; though this was never completed, he held junior lectureships at the college until 1988. Whilst at Magdalen, Mick continued to write poetry and was an active member of Magdalen's Florio Society. His first pamphlet of poems entitled The Zoologist's Bath and other adventures was printed by Fuller's Sycamore Press in June 1982. At Magdalen, he also played for both rugby and cricket college teams.

Imlah resurrected the publication of Oxford Poetry in 1983, the same year he became editor of the Poetry Review (a post he held until 1986). From 1987 to 1990, he had a editorial post at the luxury travel magazine Departures (ironically, having never previously travelled far).

Birthmarks, Imlah's first full collection of poems, was published in 1988. Having moved to London, he became Poetry Editor at Chatto & Windus in 1989, a post he held until 1993. His income was supplemented by writing reviews of fiction, non-fiction, television programmes and films for (among others) the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent on Sunday.

In 1992, Mick joined the staff of the Times Literary Supplement and succeeded Alan Hollinghurst as Poetry Editor in 1995. After Birthmarks, poetry had taken somewhat of a back seat until 1992, when the Times Literary Supplement commissioned Mick to write a poem on the centenary of Tennyson's death.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Imlah worked on biographical entries for The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry (published in 1994); wrote an introduction to Anthony Trollope's Dr Wortle's School (1999); co-edited with Robert Crawford The New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse (2000); and published a selection of verse by Alfred Lord Tennyson for Faber and Faber's 'Poet to poet' series (2004). Imlah published a number of new poems in Penguin Modern Poets 3 (1995) and the Clutag Press printed Diehard (2006), a taster of poems for his final collection, then still work in progress.

In autumn 2007, Mick was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. His second - and final - collection of poetry, The Lost Leader, which had been at least 10 years in the making, was published in 2008 and won the Forward Prize for best poetry book of the year. Drawing heavily upon his Scottish roots, Imlah also paid tribute to his partner, Maren Meinhardt, and his two young daughters. Mick died in early January 2009, aged 52 and was buried in Ayrshire after a funeral service at Magdalen College.

For further details, please see The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.