Polly Clark was born in Canada and brought up in Scotland. She received an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1997. Three collections followed from Bloodaxe: the first, Kiss (2000), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; her second, Take Me with You (2005), was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; her third was Farewell My Lovely (2009). Her pamphlet, A Handbook for the Afterlife, was shortlisted in the 2016 Michael Marks Awards. Poems from these collections and new poems are included in her forthcoming Afterlife: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2026).
Her debut novel, Larchfield (Quercus, 2017), fictionalised a little-known period in the life of W.H. Auden. It won the Mslexia Prize, as well as critical plaudits from Margaret Atwood, Louis de Bernières and Richard Ford. It was featured in the BBC television documentary Stop All The Clocks, about W.H. Auden’s life. Her follow-up, Tiger (Quercus, 2019), was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. Her third novel, Ocean, was published by Eye Books in 2025. in 2025. Polly Clark’s essays and journalism have been published in The Guardian, The Scotsman, The Observer and The Financial Times, and on her Substack, Monday Night Reads. Her poetry has been widely broadcast on BBC radio. She divides her time between the west of Scotland and a houseboat in London.
Author photo: Murdo McLeod
