Clare Pollard's Incarnation: podcasts, poem features & reviews
Clare Pollard has published five 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 sixth poetry collection Lives of the Female Poets is out from Bloodaxe in September 2025, following Incarnation, which was published 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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CLARE POLLARD PRESENTED BBC RADIO 3's SUNDAY FEATURE
Sunday Feature: Unlocking Anne, BBC Radio 3, Sunday 8 January 2023, 6.45pm
Clare Pollard presented the BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature on 8 January 2023. The programme explores the life and work of the 16th-century poet Anne Locke, who is thought to have written the first sonnet sequence in English. Clare has previously presented programmes for TV and BBC Radio 4, including her documentary My Male Muse (2007), which was a BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Year.
The feature ended with Clare Pollard reading a sonnet that she had written for Anne Locke. This is the second of ‘Two Sonnets for Anne Locke’ which are published in Clare's sixth collection Lives of the Female Poets (Bloodaxe Books, 2025).
The poet Anne Askew, ancestor of Bloodaxe poet Claire Askew, was discussed in some detail from 08:16. Anne Askew was burned at the stake for heretical writing and teaching when Anne Lock was 11 years’ old – the execution took place very close to where the young Anne lived, and would have been a formative experience for her as a writer. Claire Askew wrote a poem about Anne Askew in her prize-winning second collection How to burn a woman.
‘Anne Locke, a woman living in 16th-century England, wrote the first ever sonnet sequence in the English language? Impossible, thought Clare Pollard. As a celebrated playwright and poet, with much of her work focused on giving a voice to forgotten women, how could she not have known about Anne Locke? In this Sunday Feature, Pollard takes listeners into Anne's world and time, as she pieces together the fascinating life and work of a forgotten female sonneteer.’
Clare reads her sonnet for Anne Locke at 42:28.
Listen via BBC Sounds: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gtrt
PODCAST INTERVIEW AND POEM FEATURE WITH CLARE POLLARD
Clare Pollard’s poem ‘At Peckham Rye’ from her fifth collection Incarnation was the focus of Episode 39 of the poetry podcast A Mouthful of Air on 8 November 2022.
Clare read the poem and discussed it in depth with host Mark McGuinness. She spoke about motherhood, her writing process (she composes poems in her head), William Blake, Aldous Huxley, and much else besides.
The poem and a transcript of the interview are featured on the podcast page along with the audio here.
‘At Peckham Rye’ ran as the Guardian’s Saturday poem on 11 March 2017. Illustrated online with a photo of Peckham Rye. Read here.
FRANK SKINNER POETRY PODCAST
Frank Skinner featured Clare Pollard's 2011 collection Changeling on his poetry podcast in June 2022.
'Vampires and mermaids - Frank falls under the spell of Clare Pollard’s fabulous poetry. The collection referenced is Changeling by Clare Pollard and the individual poems referenced are 'Zennor' and 'Whitby'.'
‘As you may have guessed, I really like Clare Pollard, I really like this book Changeling, and as ever, I recommend that you read it, as there’s a lot more richness and spooky stuff.’ – Frank Skinner
The episode is 43 minutes long. Listen via Spotify here. 'Zennor’ is discussed first, then ‘Whitby’ from 21.17.
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Clare Pollard's fifth collection Incarnation was published by Bloodaxe in 2017. This collection draws on her own experience of motherhood, but also explores ideas of innocence and responsibility, and what it means to bring new human beings into this world.
Click here to read Heidi Williamson's review of Incarnation on the Poetry School's blog.
Clare Pollard's poem 'At Peckham Rye' from Incarnation was featured as a Saturday Poem in The Guardian. Click here to read.
[16 June 2022]
