Poetry collection 'New Famous Phrases', published by Broken Sleep Books available to pre-order now: www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page…mous-phrases

A reading of 'The Sea Chain', a poem from the Freedom-Rapture edition of Black Bough Poetry.

The Sea Chain

Poetry collection 'New Famous Phrases', published by Broken Sleep Books in March 2025, is available to order now: https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/daniel-hinds-new-famous-phrases  

The Stone Men of Newcastle is a sequence of poems about the city’s statues and their place in contemporary Newcastle by Daniel Hinds.

A stage adaptation of The Stone Men of Newcastle was Runner-Up for the Pomegranate Poetry Theatre Prize, and was performed by Théâtre Volière at the Poetry Plays Festival on the 20th April 2024 at the Cockpit Theatre in London. https://www.theatrevoliere.com/project-01-poetry-plays

The audio piece was first broadcast on BBC platforms, including BBC Sounds and BBC Introducing Arts with Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 6 Music. It was also broadcast on the Eat the Storms podcast and XMTR.

The Stone Men of Newcastle was commissioned by New Creatives, a talent development scheme supported by Arts Council England and BBC Arts, and delivered by Tyneside Cinema. Lead audio production partner: Naked Productions. Cast: Dan Pye and Stacey Ghent.


Daniel was recognised at the Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University’s Celebrating Success event in October 2022 for The Stone Men of Newcastle. He was also a finalist for Newcomer of the Year 2024 at the North East Culture Awards.

The Stone Men of Newcastle is a sequence of poems told through the eyes of The Commuter, the speaker and poet-figure, as he encounters the statues of Newcastle as part of his daily life working in the city. The sequence takes in Sir Antony Gormley’s vandalised Clasp sculpture, the St George and the Dragon war memorial at Eldon Square, another monument for the First World War, The Response 1914, and the Mercutio statue in Newcastle’s Theatre Royal. The Stone Men of Newcastle concludes with a consideration of the future figures we will immortalise in bronze and stone.

The sequence enters into the current debate, typified by the Rhodes Must Fall movement and the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol, on how we engage with art and history in the form of statues. The statues sometimes co-exist uneasily with their setting: they are surrounded by the distractions of modern life, represent a past impossible to compete with or at odds with our values, and are vulnerable to defacement. Yet, they can also be sources of inspiration, beauty, and connection to the past, sites of contemplation as well as conflict.

The Stone Men Of Newcastle

Daniel Hinds is a poet from Newcastle. His debut poetry collection New Famous Phrases was published by Broken Sleep Books in March 2025, and is available to order here: https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/daniel-hinds-new-famous-phrases. 

He is a BBC New Creative, New Writing North North East Poet, and Ilkley Literature Festival New Northern Poet. He is a North East Culture Award 2024 Newcomer of the Year finalist.

His audio piece, The Stone Men of Newcastle, a sequence of poems about the city’s statues and their place in contemporary Newcastle, has been broadcast on BBC platforms, including BBC Sounds and BBC Introducing Arts with Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 6 Music. The audio piece was commissioned by New Creatives, a talent development scheme supported by Arts Council England and BBC Arts and delivered by Tyneside Cinema and Naked Productions. He was recognised at the Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University’s Celebrating Success event for The Stone Men of Newcastle. His stage adaptation of The Stone Men of Newcastle was a Runner-Up for the Pomegranate Poetry Theatre Prize, and was performed by Théâtre Volière at the Poetry Plays Festival at the Cockpit Theatre, London.

His writing has been recognised in various writing competitions, awards, and prizes. He won the Poetry Society’s Timothy Corsellis Young Critics Prize 2018 and his experimental prose poem review of Jay Bernard’s Surge was one of the winners of the Shortlist Book Review Competition 2020, held in celebration of the Dylan Thomas Prize by Swansea University. His poetry was commended in the National Centre for Writing’s UEA New Forms Award 2021, and was recognised in Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 13. He was also one of the winners of The Broken Spine’s Flash Fiction Competition. He was shortlisted for the Cinnamon Press Poetry Pamphlet Award 2022, Streetcake Experimental Writing Prize 2019, and the Terry Kelly Poetry Prize 2018, and longlisted for the Cinnamon Press Poetry Pamphlet Prize 2021. Two of his poems were highly commended in the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts Water Poetry Competition, judged by W. N. Herbert and John Burnside. These poems were displayed at Northern Stage and projected onto Newcastle University’s Percy Building.

His poetry has been published in various literary magazines, anthologies, audio platforms, and national newspapers, including: The London Magazine, The New European, Wild Court, Poetry Salzburg Review, Stand, Southword, Shearsman, Prairie Fire, The Best New British and Irish Poets 2019-2021, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Blackbox Manifold, The Honest Ulsterman, Iamb, Fly on the Wall Press Magazine, The Morning Star, Finished Creatures, Crannóg, Rewilding: An Ecopoetic Anthology, Newcastle University’s One Planet Anthology, Oxford University’s A Personal History of Home and A Tapestry of Homes anthologies, Amethyst Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Perverse, Streetcake Magazine, Riggwelter, Orbis, The Seventh Quarry, New Contrast, The Mechanics’ Institute Review, York Literary Review, Poetry Scotland, Poetry and Covid, bind, Acid Bath Publishing’s The Worst Best Years: A Student Life Anthology, Travels & Tribulations, A Pocket Anthology of Addiction & Recovery, and Night Terrors, Fenland Poetry Journal, Skylight 47, StepAway Magazine, The Lake, Visual Verse, Carousel, the lickety~split, The Wilfred Owen Association Journal, Selcouth Station, Nightingale & Sparrow, Black Bough Poetry, Abridged, Poetry Bus Magazine, Confluence, Ropes Literary Journal, Fragmented Voices, Porridge, Osmosis Press, Fevers of the Mind, Spellbinder, Creative Ireland’s 2022 Poetry Anthology Chasing Shadows, Full Mood Mag, Cardigan Press’s Byline Legacies anthology, Milk and Cake Press’s Dead of Winter II and Dead of Winter III anthologies, Bent Key Publishing’s Ey Up Again anthology, The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press’s Ourselves in Rivers and Oceans anthology, BFS Horizons, The Storms, XMTR, and the Eat the Storms podcast. He has also had an essay published in Pre-Raphaelite Society Review.

He was part of a panel of judges for the NCLA Belonging Poetry Competition and contributed to New Writing North's Dawn Chorus collective sound poem, which premiered at the Durham Book Festival. He is an Ilkley Literature Festival New Northern Poet 2023. Additionally, he was commissioned by the Ilkley Literature Festival, as one of their New Northern Poets 2022, to write and record a poem that premiered at the festival for National Poetry Day. His poetry also featured in a display at Wycliffe Hall for Creation Theatre’s production of As You Like It.

He graduated from Newcastle University with a first class degree in English Literature, and a Distinction in his English Literature 1500-1900 MA, for which he won two prestigious scholarships, the School Bursary Award and Excellence Scholarship.

He is a member of The Poetry Society and The Society of Authors.

Daniel Hinds Poetry