Clare Pollard Readings

Clare Pollard's sixth poetry collection Lives of the Female Poets is published by Bloodaxe in September 2025, following Incarnation, which was published in 2017. In Lives of the Female Poets, Clare Pollard cocks a snook at Dr Johnson’s all-male Lives of the Poets in chronicling her own life and theirs. These portraits and self portraits offer glimpses into the poet’s own everyday life – from nit-combing and laundry to pollen counts and cocktails, watching school plays to shopping on Rye Lane – all whilst in conversation with female poets through the ages.

Clare Pollard has published five previous poetry collections and two translations with Bloodaxe, as well as co-editing the anthology Voice Recognition: 21 poets for the 21st century (Bloodaxe Books, 2009) with James Byrne. Translations include a new version of Ovid's Heroines (Bloodaxe, 2013) which she toured as a one-woman show, and Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf's The Sea-Migrations (Somali title: Tahriib), published by Bloodaxe and the Poetry Translation Centre in 2017. Her non-fiction book Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind our Picture Books was published by Fig Tree in 2019. Her novels for adults, Delphi (2022) and The Modern Fairies (2024), have been published by Fig Tree in the UK and Avid Reader in the US. Her book for children,The Untameables, illustrated by Reena Makwana, was published by The Emma Press in 2024. She won the Tadeusz Bradecki Prize in 2025 for The Modern Fairies, an award given to works that combine storytelling fiction and non-fiction in original ways, encompassing a range of artistic genres, disciplines, cultures and subjects.

Clare was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2022 for her poem ‘Pollen’, first published in Bad Lilies. The poem is included in her sixth collection Lives of the Female Poets.

Read 'Pollen' as it originally appeared in Bad Lilies here.

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FORTHCOMING EVENTS

 

 

Saturday 8 November (time TBC)

Poetry in Aldeburgh: Saturday Evening Gala Reading

Clare will join Richard Scott for this headline reading at the Aldeburgh poetry festival. 

Full details to be announced here.

 

[20 June 2025]

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