Books by Poetry Society Youth Members Alumni

Jay Bernard

The title of Your Sign is Cuckoo, Girl is taken from Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time. "In retrospect, I think I was looking to explore a similar kind of womanly introspection - full of nightmares, infatuation and lunacy. I wrote most of the poems between 16 and 19, and almost all were written with readings in mind. The pamphlet itself came out of a 'pilot series' tall-lighthouse had created, Roddy Lumsden was my editor and it was the Poetry Book Society's pamphlet choice for summer 2008'. Jay's poetry was featured in Bloodaxe's Voice Recognition: 21 poets for the 21st Centrury. Jay perfomed alongside Jackie Kay and Costa Prize Winner Jo Shapcott at the re-opening of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon in December 2010 and has performed at the Big Chill and Latitude. Jay was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2005. Jay is also a previous winner of our SLAMbassador spoken word championship.

 

Caroline Bird

Caroline Bird's playful and surreal poems have a startling vibrancy. Her first collectionLooking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002, her follow up collection Trouble Came to the Turnip came out in 2006. Caroline's latest book Watering Can launched at the end of November 2009. Caroline has performed widely, including Latitude, The Big Chill and alongside Simon Armitage for National Poetry Day 2010. Caroline was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 1999 & 2000, and Commended in the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in 2004.

 'The tone fuses knowing innocence and integrity; some poems are faux naif with a ballad lilt, others are sad, funny, surreal; all are studded with fresh imaginative insights.' - Ruth Padel, Financial Times

'Her poems burst with linguistic energy', and the book is profligate with striking lines and images.' - Times Literary Supplement

  

  Sarah Howe

Sarah Howe's debut (A Certain Chinese Encyclopedia) offers great range [and] a series of poetic endeavours which nourish and reward. Some of the work here reflects her dual heritage in one of her longer pieces she describes travelling to China and Hong Kong where she spent her childhood, to trace her mother's roots. She also offers imaginistic shorter poems and edgier forays into more experimental terrain. She is a poet of place, from the limited landscapes of bed to the grand vistas of exploration (Roddy Lumsden). Sarah won an Eric Gregory in 2010 and is performing at the StAnza festival in Scotland 2011. Sarah was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2000.

  

Annie Katchinska

 

Annie Katchinska’s pamphlet Faber New Poets 6 was produced as part of Faber’s New Poets series, which identified and supported emerging talents at an early stage in their career through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication. Annie is currently studying at Oxford University. Annie was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2006 & 2007 and won Second Prize in the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in 2007.

  

 

Michael McKimm

 

In Still This Need Michael McKimm explores the complex beauty of the world we live in, and how we try to understand our place in it. From the wide skies of his native Antrim glens to the secret damp corners of urban England, McKimm's richly musical verse evokes a haunting landscape against which the intricacies of memory, myth, history and love begin to unfold.Michael was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2001.
  

 

 

Helen Mort

Helen has published two collections of poetry. The shape of every box (published 2007) is her debut pamphlet with tall-lighthouse press, and presents twenty poems of people and place, some of which previously appeared as winning poems in the Foyle competition. A pint for the ghost (published 2009) is a sequence of poems inspired by South Yorkshire legend: a night-time encounter with the ghosts of worked out mines, smoky pubs and deserted highways. Helen is currently poet-in-residence at the Wordsworth Trust. Helen was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year five times from 1998-2004 and was Commended in the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in 2004.

  

 

Richard O'Brien

 Richard told us your own devices "contains almost everything good I've written since the second Foyle's winners course, and one poem that really came into existence on the first. Most of these poems come from my first year at university, and it probably shows: they're preoccupied with medieval manuscripts, obscure music, love and jealousy and peanut butter Kit Kat Chunkies. According to the series editor, I'm also 'lonesome.' I feel like a coyote." Richard is currently studying Modern Languages at Oxford University. Richard was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2006 & 2007 and Commended in the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in 2008.

   

 

Charlotte Runcie

 

Charlotte's poems are about journeys, internal and external, real and imagined. Using both strict form and free verse, her pamphlet tells stories of the everyday alongside semi-mythical beings and strange landscapes, from the bottom of the sea to outer space. Charlotte's pamphlet Seventeen Horse Skeletons is available from tall-lighthouse. Charlotte was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2006 and won First Prize in the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize in 2007.

  

 

Laura Seymour

Herb Robert' grew out of the 2009 Flarestack Press pamphlet competition, Being shortlisted in this competition, and being invited to submit a new collection to the editors, Meredith Andrea and Jacqui Rowe, for consideration. It is a collection of poems written around the theme of the plant herb robert (it's in each of them somewhere), in particular, the myth that if you pick it, someone will come and take you away. Laura was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2004.

   

Charlotte Trevella

 

Charlotte Trevella has been hailed as a poetry phenomenon in her home country of New Zealand. Her first collection, Because Paradise, was published in 2009. Her work explores the minutaie of relationships and is strongly influenced by the geographic and social landscape of New Zealand. Charlotte was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2008 & 2009.