The editor of Poetry Review, Fiona Sampson, is leaving the Poetry Society to develop her career in other directions, the Poetry Society announced today. The society said: “She is in great demand as a reader of her work, a teacher and lecturer, and as a judge of poetry competitions. Relinquishing the editorship of Poetry Review will give her the time to extend her very considerable achievements in all these areas, and shift her editorial work to a more international focus.”

In a wide-ranging interview with Frances Spurrier for Write Out Loud last month,  Sampson talked of the 6,000 submissions annually that Poetry Review received, and also spoke of the teaching of poetry in schools, which started an enthusiastic debate on Write Out Loud.  

Sampson is a leading poet and translator who has been twice shortlisted for the TS Eliot and Forward prizes. She was appointed editor of Poetry Review in March 2005, and in 2009 edited A Century of Poetry Review which surveyed the journal’s history since its foundation, and provided a substantial anthology of poems and prose published in it since its inception.

The Poetry Society said: “Throughout her time with Poetry Review, Fiona Sampson has been a committed and professional editor who has produced a series of issues which both maintain and extend the society’s position as the leading national organisation for poetry in Britain. The Poetry Society wishes her every success in her future career.”

The spring issue of Poetry Review will be published on 29 March, featuring the winning entries in the National Poetry Competition, as well as work by poets and critics including Robin Robertson, Marilyn Hacker, David Morley, Anne Stevenson, and Ahren Warner. Poetry Review’s summer issue will be guest-edited by George Szirtes.

Photograph: Adrian Pope