poetry

Caroline Bird is known for her inventive and vivid poetry, described by Simon Armitage as ‘spring-loaded, funny and deadly.’ Her latest collection, AMBUSH AT STILL LAKE (2024), explores themes of marriage, lesbian parenthood, addiction, and recovery. Her sixth collection, THE AIR YEAR, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2020 and was shortlisted for both the Polari Prize and the Costa Prize. IN THESE DAYS OF PROHIBITION, her fifth collection, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. Her second and third collections, WATERING CAN and TROUBLE CAME TO THE TURNIP were both shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Award. Bird, a two-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, published her first collection, LOOKING THROUGH LETTERBOXES, at just 15 years old. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was one of the official poets at the 2012 London Olympics. Her Selected Poems, ROOKIE, was published in 2022, and she received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors in 2023 for ‘sustained excellence across a body of work.’