William Sieghart

William Sieghart (born 1960) is a British entrepreneur, publisher and philanthropist and the founder of the Forward Prizes for Poetry. He is former chairman of the Somerset House Trust. In 1992, Sieghart established The Forward Prizes for Poetry to help raise the profile of contemporary poetry by new and established poets. In 1994, he founded National Poetry Day, a day of celebration of verse on the first Thursday of October, which has become an established fixture in the cultural calendar. Events take place in schools, pubs, arts centres, bookshops, libraries, buses, trains and Women's Institutes, and the day is the focus for media attention for poetry