Symmons Roberts has been described by Jeanette Winterson as "a religious poet for a secular age", and by Les Murray as "a poet for the new chastened, unenforcing age of faith that has just dawned". Miguel Cullen described his " millimetric adjective, the air-tight, wool-swaddled image, and that child's forensic perception, (that) he never grew out of". Alan Brownjohn wrote that his "religious poems ... seem designed for an age of doubt and DNA". Although rooted in the English lyric tradition, his work draws on the language of science (especially genetics and genomics), theology and philosophy. Work His fourth book of poetry, Corpus, was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for best collection, and the Griffin Poetry Prize. He had previously received the Society of Authors' Gregory Award for British poets under 30 and the K Blundell Trust Award, and was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize for his 2001 collection Burning Babylon. In 2007 he received a major Arts Council Writers Award. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the English Association, for services to the language arts. In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His sixth collection, Drysalter won the 2013 Forward Prize and the Costa Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. His continuing collaboration with composer James MacMillan has led to two BBC Proms choral commissions, song cycles, music theatre works and a new opera for the Welsh National Opera, The Sacrifice, which won the 2008 Royal Philharmonic Society Award. His work for radio includes 'A Fearful Symmetry' – for Radio 4 – which won the Sandford St Martin Prize, 'Soldiers in the Sun' – for Radio 3 – which won the Clarion Award, and 'Last Words' commissioned by Radio 4 to mark the first anniversary of 9/11. His first novel, Patrick's Alphabet, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2006, and his second, Breath, in 2008. He is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University and a trustee of the Arvon Foundation. He has judged many poetry awards including the Forward Prizes (twice), the Eliot Prize and the Arvon International Poetry Prize. Awards and honours Won Eric Gregory Award (1988) Poetry Book Society Recommendation (2001) Sandford St Martin Premier Award (2002) K Blundell Trust Award (2003) Jerusalem Trust Award (2004) Poetry