Oxford Poets is an imprint

Imprint

In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...

 of the British poetry publisher 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...

.

The imprint was established in March 1999 when the founder and editor of Carcanet Press, Michael Schmidt

Michael Schmidt (poet)

Michael Schmidt is a Mexican-British poet, author and scholar. He studied at Harvard and at Wadham College, Oxford. He is currently Professor of Poetry at Glasgow University, where he is convener of the Creative Writing M.Litt programme...

, acquired the Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

 poetry list. OUP's authors had included such critically acclaimed poets as Fleur Adcock

Fleur Adcock

Kareen Fleur Adcock , CNZM, OBE is a poet and an editor of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England.-Life and career:...

, Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky

Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky , was a Russian poet and essayist.In 1964, 23-year-old Brodsky was arrested and charged with the crime of "social parasitism" He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters...

, Greg Delanty

Greg Delanty

Greg Delanty is an Irish poet. He is artist-in-residence at St. Michael's College, and current President of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers....

, Alice Oswald

Alice Oswald

-Career:Oswald read Classics at New College, Oxford, has worked as a gardener at Chelsea Physic Garden, and today lives with her husband, the playwright Peter Oswald , and her three children in Devon, in the South-West of England....

, Craig Raine

Craig Raine

Craig Raine is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. Along with Christopher Reid, he is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.-Life:...

, and Jo Shapcott

Jo Shapcott

Jo Shapcott FRSL, is an English poet, editor and lecturer who has won the National Poetry Competition, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Costa Book of the Year Award, a Forward Poetry Prize and the Cholmondeley Award.-Career:...

. Oxford University Press's decision to abandon its poetry list in November 1998 provoked a literary firestorm in the British media.

Though published by Carcanet, the Oxford Poets list has retained an element of editorial independence. Two major contemporary writers, the Irish poet Bernard O'Donoghue

Bernard O'Donoghue

Bernard O'Donoghue is a noted contemporary Irish poet and academic.Born in Cullen, County Cork, Ireland, he moved to Manchester, England when he was 16, where he attended St Bede's College. He has lived in Oxford, England since 1965...

 and the English poet, editor, and translator David Constantine

David Constantine

David Constantine is a British poet and translator.Constantine is a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford University, and a graduate of Wadham College, Oxford. He is co-editor of the literary journal Modern Poetry in Translation...

currently oversee the imprint.