Caroline Bird
Caroline was recently shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was the youngest writer on the list at 22. She has also won an Eric Gregory Award (2002) and the Foyle Young Poet of the Year award two years running (1999, 2000), and was a winner of the Poetry London Competition in 2007, the Peterloo Poetry Competition in 2004, 2003 and 2002. At this year’s festival, she’ll be wooing us in verse as part of Untitled Books’ Literary Lonely Hearts Club.
She has had two collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes (published in 2002 when she was only 15) is a topical, zesty and formally delightful collection of poems built on the traditions of fairy tale, fantasy and romance. Her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim. Caroline’s third book will be published by Carcanet in November 2009.
Caroline’s poems have been published in several anthologies, including Oxford Poetry 2008, and are published regularly in PN Review, Poetry Review, The North magazine. Several of her poems and a commissioned short story, Sucking Eggs, have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3.
In recent years, Caroline has given poetry readings at Latitude Festival, the Manchester Literature Festival, the Wellcome Collection (with Don Paterson), the Royal Festival Hall (with Elaine Feinstein), St Hilda’s College (with Wendy Cope), the Wordsworth Trust (with Gillian Allnutt), Cheltenham Festival (with Clare Pollard) and Ledbury Festival, amongst others.
