Julian Turner

Julian Turner (born 1955) is a British poet and mental health worker.

Julian Turner was born in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, then in Cheshire, in 1955. He now lives in Otley, West Yorkshire, with his partner and their daughter.

He was educated at New College, Oxford (matriculated 1974) and Goldsmiths College, University of London.

He is the Chief Executive of Mind in Leeds and a Trustee of Survivors' Poetry, an organisation "Promoting poetry by survivors of mental distress".

His poems have been published in periodicals including Poetry London, The Reater, and The Realto, and in The Ring of Words: Poems from the Daily Telegraph Arvon International Poetry Competition 1998 (introduction by Andrew Motion, Stroud: Sutton, 1998)

In 1993 he won First Prize in the Nortwords poetry competition for his poem 'Whale Bone'.

In 2002 his collection Crossing the Outskirts was published by Anvil Press Poetry. It was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation (2002) and was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best First Collection) (2002). A number of poems in the collection deal with mental health issues. For example, 'Tennis Ball' is about suicide and 'The Director's Cut' is about self-harm. The poems in this collection observe traditional conventions of rhyme and metre.

In 2004 he won a Bridport Supplementary Prize for his poem 'The Gas Poker'.

His second collection, Orphan Sites, was published by Anvil Press Poetry in 2006.

Sources and further information

• David Harris, Review of Crossing the Outskirts, Bookslut (July 2003)
• Anvil Press Poetry
• Limelight Issue 2 (August 2003)
• EnCompassCulture
• Poetry prize shortlist unveiled, BBC News (8 July 2002)
• Belinda Cooke, Two from Anvil (Review of Ruth Silcock, Biographies etc. and Julian Turner, Orphan Sites), Stride Magazine (February 2007)
• Jeffrey Side, Review of Julian Turner, Crossing the Outskirts, Stride Magazine (March 2005)
• Peter Dale, ed., Oxford poetry, Oxford Today: The University Magazine vol. 19, no. 2 (Hilary Term 2007), p. 41
• Julian Turner, 'What is Recovery?' (p. 11), 'Opinion' (p. 12) in Leeds Mind Newsletter
• Bridport Prize 2004
• Survivors' Poetry Newsletter no. 1 (September/October 1998), p. 4
• Poetry Express (Winter 2002/03)
• Art at Leeds Mind
• Julian Turner, Memorandum from Leeds Mind, House of Lords-House of Commons Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill, Session 2004-05, Volume III: Written evidence, pp. 150-1