Tony William Harrison (30 April 1937 – 26 September 2025) was an English poet, translator and playwright. He was one of Britain's foremost verse writers and many of his works have been performed at the Royal National Theatre. He is noted for controversial works such as the poem "V", as well as his versions of dramatic works such as the tragedies Oresteia and Lysistrata from ancient Greek, Molière's The Misanthrope from French, and The Mysteries from Middle English.

Harrison was also noted for his outspoken views, particularly those on the Iraq War. In 2015, he was honoured with the David Cohen Prize in recognition of his body of work and in 2016, he was awarded the Premio Feronia [it] in Rome.

Tony William Harrison was born on 30 April 1937 into a working-class family in Beeston, Leeds. He was the elder child of baker Harry Ashton and homemaker Florrie (née Wilkinson-Horner) Harrison. He was a scholarship pupil at Leeds Grammar School, then read Classics at the University of Leeds.

From 1962 to 1966, he lectured in English at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. He then taught at Charles University in Czechoslovakia before returning to England in 1967.

Harrison published his first book of poetry, The Loiners, in 1970; Loiner is an informal demonym, of unclear origin, for people from Leeds. Claire Armitstead, in his obituary for The Guardian, describes the collection as "exuberantly rude".

The Mysteries, his adaptation of the York and Wakefield cycles of English medieval mystery plays, was first performed in 1985 by the Royal National Theatre. Interviewed by Melvyn Bragg for BBC Television in 2012, Harrison said: "It was only when I did the Mystery Plays and got Northern actors doing verse, that I felt that I was reclaiming the energy of classical verse in the voices that it was created for."

One of his best-known works is the long poem "V" (1985), written during the miners' strike of 1984–85, and describing a trip to see his parents' grave in Holbeck Cemetery in Beeston, Leeds, "now littered with beer cans and vandalised by obscene graffiti". The title has several possible interpretations: victory, versus, verse, insulting V sign, etc. Proposals to screen a filmed version of "V" by Channel 4 in October 1987 drew howls of outrage from the tabloid press, some broadsheet journalists, and Members of Parliament (MPs), apparently concerned about the effects its "torrents of obscene language" and "streams of four-letter filth" would have on the nation's youth. Indeed, an early day motion entitled "Television Obscenity" was proposed on 27 October 1987 by a group of Conservative MPs, who condemned Channel 4 and the Independent Broadcasting Authority. The motion was opposed only by MP Norman Buchan, who suggested that fellow members had either failed to read or failed to understand the poem. The broadcast went ahead and, after widespread press coverage, the uproar subsided. MP Gerald Howarth said that Harrison was "Probably another bolshie poet wishing to impose his frustrations on the rest of us". When told of this, Harrison retorted that Howarth was "Probably another idiot MP wishing to impose his intellectual limitations on the rest of us".

Yan Tan Tethera, which premiered on 7 August 1986, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, is a chamber opera (subtitled A Mechanical Pastoral) by the English composer Harrison Birtwistle with a libretto by Harrison. It is based on a supernatural folk tale about two shepherds, their sheep, and the Devil. The title comes from a traditional way of counting sheep. In 2014, it was revived at The Barbican as part of a series celebrating the composer's 80th birthday.