Reid was born in Hong Kong. A contemporary of Martin Amis, he was educated at Tonbridge School and Exeter College, Oxford. He is an exponent of Martian poetry,^[2] which employs unusual metaphors to render everyday experiences and objects unfamiliar. He has worked as poetry editor at Faber and Faber and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull.

• Arcadia (1979) – 1980 Somerset Maugham Award, Hawthornden Prize
• Pea Soup (1982)
• Katerina Brac (1985)^[2]
• In The Echoey Tunnel (1991)
• Universes (1994)
• Expanded Universes (1996)
• Two Dogs on a Pub Roof (1996)
• Mermaids Explained (2001)
• For and After (2003)
• Mr Mouth (2005)
• A Scattering (2009) – Book of the Year, 2009 Costa Book Awards^[1]
• The Song of Lunch (2009)
• A Box of Tricks for Anna Zyx (2009)
• Selected Poems (2011)
• Nonsense (2012)
• Six Bad Poets (2013)
• Anniversary (2015)
• The Curiosities (2015)
• The Late Sun (2020)

For children

• All Sorts: poems, illustrated by Sara Fanelli (London: Ondt & Gracehoper, 1999) OCLC 48611316
• Alphabicycle Order, ill. Fanelli (Ondt & Gracehoper, 2001)
• Old Toffer's Book of Consequential Dogs, illustrated by Elliott Elam — companion book to T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Practical Cats — (Faber & Faber, 2018)

As editor

• The Poetry Book Society Anthology 1989-1990 (1989)
• Sounds Good: 101 Poems to be Heard (1990)
• The May Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge Poetry 1997 (1997)
• Not to Speak of the Dog: 101 Short Stories in Verse (2000)
• Selected Letters of Ted Hughes (2007)^[2]
• The Letters of Seamus Heaney (2023)

• Craig Raine
• The Song of Lunch (TV adaptation of his poem)

• Christopher Reid at British Council: Literature
• Christopher Reid at Library of Congress, with 16 library catalogue records
• Alphabicycle Order horn concerto at WorldCat – monologue with music (chorus with orchestra) by Colin Matthews