Born in 1929, Michael read English Language at Oxford under Christopher Tolkien. After this magnificent education, he ended up working as an invoice typist in bookshops, but found his way into literary journalism through the Times Educational Supplement. This led to short stints at the New Statesman and Guardian and, eventually, he became Art Critic for the Sunday Telegraph, Commissioning Editor for Arts Review magazine, and a contributor to the Times Obituary Department.
Concurrent with these he worked for twenty years as Graduate Thesis Tutor at the Royal Academy of Art. He has also appeared on both radio and television, and was the first non-American to select and judge the Mid-States Art Exhibition in Indiana.
For about thirty years he has been part of a team translating and annotating the letters of Marsilio Ficino, and he put together the volume Friend to Mankind (Shepheard-Walwyn, 1999) to celebrate the quincentenary of Ficino's death.
Michael came late to writing sonnets, which seem to pour out of him. Despite - or perhaps because of - the strictness of the form, they give apt expression of one man's quest for Truth. Click here to see an excerpt of When I Awaken to Myself.