Poet
Phillip Mellor was born in Leeds in the United Kingdom in 1982. He is a proud Yorkshireman but moved from his native land to Seattle USA in 2018 to live with his wife, American Artist Heather (Carr) Mellor.
In 1998, at sixteen years of age, Phillip took his love of rhyme to a whole new level, when in a High School English examination he wrote what he describes as a prose poem about a day in the life of a deserted beach.
”My writing career began right there in that examination hall. It was like something magical happened, I chose the theme of a deserted beach and started to write. I could relate to the theme because one of my favorite things to do while holidaying with my parents back then was to get up early in the morning and walk on the empty beach. I started to write and it flowed from me so naturally. It took me by complete surprise.”
Following that magical moment, Phillip went on to read as much poetry he could get his hands on over that summer. He re-wrote that prose poem about the beach from memory and began to write more of his own poems, experimenting with rhyme and the form of his words.
”I knew nothing about how to write a poem back then, I just had this overwhelming desire to do it. I had to write, it was a need. I thought it might pass in time, a fad or a phase, but it didn’t, and it still hasn’t to this day.”
Phillip credits Seamus Heaney, the famous Irish poet for originally lighting the fire of poetry within him.
“It was Seamus Heaney that sparked my real interest in poetry. We studied his work in High School. I had always loved rhyme, but it wasn’t until Heaney that it really hit me in a fundamental way. His poem DIGGING planted a seed in my brain that germinated and finally flowered in the summer of 1998. Today I walk in an abundant garden of words because of him.”
Throughout the next nine years Phillip honed his craft, reading many different poets and soaked in as much art as his time allowed. He graduated from college in 2000 and had his poem THE MOMENT published twice by The United Press in 2004 and 2005 retrospectively.
In September 2007 he realized his dream of publishing his own book of poetry. STILL GROWING brought together a selection of his work from his previous nine years of writing.
“I am still proud of that book. It’s naïve and innocent in many ways, but it’s full of those early writings that started it all. Having the opportunity to release STILL GROWING and have people read a selection of the poems I had been crafting for nine years was an honor.”
Phillip has gone on to publish seven more books of his poetry, and two audiobooks. He has had several of his poems published by Papercut Zine in his home town of Leeds and more published in the South Wales Evening Post and Calliope literary magazine in the USA.
Phillip married the artist Heather (Carr) Mellor in January 2017 after they met in a online Facebook art group in 2012. They became admirers of each other’s work and in 2015 commenced a long distance relationship. Heather has produced artwork for two of Phillip’s books, OTHER SILENT DAYS in 2016 and DRAWING OUTSIDE OF THE LINES the following year. They now live together in Seattle, Washington USA where in early 2019 they launched Silent Days Studio, their creative business together.
“Our hope is that this business will give us a platform to create both our solo pieces of art, and to collaborate together in a way that was never possible before. Heather has just produced art for the cover of my upcoming book, THE DARK PLACES OF LOST THINGS, and we really cannot wait to fully collaborate on many joint projects in the future.”
See more of Phillip’s work:
Instagram: @pipmel
www.instagram.com/pipmel
Phillip Mellor’s Bibliography
Still Growing (2007)
Conditioned By The System (2009)
MoonJar (2010)
Bones and Broken Hearts (2011)
Seasons of Distraction (2012)
Lights From The Lowlands (2014)
Other Silent Days (2016)
The Dark Places of Lost Things (2019)
Compilations
Drawing Outside of The Lines: Poems 2007-2017 (2017)
Audiobooks
Poems Vol 1 (2015)
Poems Vol 2 (2016)
Silent Days Studio 