Gillian Allnutt Readings
Gillian Allnutt's tenth collection Lode is published by Bloodaxe Books in May 2025. It will be launched with a number of readings around North-East England, where Gillian Allnutt has lived for the past thirty years.
The lode in Gillian Allnutt’s title picks up on two of the many meanings of the word. A lode can be a course, a way, a journey; also a road, a lane. Her collection traces a journey through time, the time of her own life and of our lives, since the Second World War. Lode also means guidance, here the guidance afforded by the continuity and relative stability – economic, cultural, spiritual – of Britain’s postwar years, the setting of the first part of the book.
Gillian Allnutt's earlier collections Nantucket and the Angel and Lintel were both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Poems from these collections are included in her Bloodaxe retrospective How the Bicycle Shone: New & Selected Poems (2007), which draws on six published books plus a new collection, Wolf Light, and was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her most recent collections from Bloodaxe are indwelling (2013) and wake (2018), with her tenth collection Lode published in May 2025.
Gillian Allnutt was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2016. The Medal, awarded for excellence in poetry, was made on the basis of her body of work. Her poetry has been published by Bloodaxe Books since 1994.
‘From her first collection published in the early 1980s, Gillian Allnutt’s work has always been in conversation with the natural world and the spiritual life. Her writing roams across centuries, very different histories and lives, and draws together, without excuse or explanation, moments which link across country, class, culture and time. The North is a constant touchstone in her work; canny and uncanny, its hills and coast, its ancient histories and its people. Her poems progress over the years to a kind of synthesis of word-play and meditation. In her work the space between what is offered and what is withheld is every bit as important as what is said. She has the power to comfort and to astonish in equal measure. In her outlook, her imagination, her concerns and her lyric voice she is unique.’ – Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, for The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry Award Committee 2016
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A review of Lode is featured in Rishi Dastidar's best recent poetry round-up in The Guardian of 2 May 2025. Read online here.
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Friday 20 June, 7pm (doors open 6.30)
Gillian Allnutt: poetry reading & book signing
The People's Bookshop, 19 Prince Bishops Place, Durham, DH1 3UJ
Gillian will be reading from her new collection Lode.
Tickets: £5, includes wine or soft drinks and snacks.
More details and booking here.
(Event rearranged from Friday 6 June)
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Gillian Allnutt spoke about and read from her ninth collection wake on BBC Radio 4's Front Row in May 2018. Click here to listen. Archived in chapters (final item). Download the podcast to hear an extra poem.
An interview with Gillian Allnutt was featured in MONK Magazine in October 2021 and is available online here.
[10 June 2025]
