Greta Stoddart’s first collection At Home in the Dark (Anvil) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2002.
Her second book, Salvation Jane (Anvil), was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award 2008.
Her third book, Alive Alive O (Bloodaxe, 2015), was shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize 2016 and included a poem shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem.
Her latest work, a radio poem ‘Who’s there?’broadcast on BBC Radio 4 was BBC Pick of the Week and shortlisted for the 2017 Ted Hughes Award.
Her new book Fool was published in September 2022.
She lives in Devon where she teaches for the Poetry School.
Comments on FOOL:
‘What is knowable, and how things are known, are themes of the collection. The Fool, a figure whose consciousness it often explores, may see more clearly through a gaze uncluttered by received ideas.’
Carol Rumens, Guardian Poem of the Week, September 2022
‘Stoddart ranges dazzlingly across the nature of time, reality, happiness and self … Among current major UK poets, Stoddart’s poetic voice is perhaps as hard to categorise as anyone’s, except in its excellence. Even more than its wondrous three precursors, Fool will demand re-readings to absorb its full richness.
Matthew Paul, The Friday Poem, November 2022
Comments on previous books:
‘Greta Stoddart sets transience against endurance: the certainty of human mortality against the mysteries of forbearance.’ – David Harsent, Chair of Judges, Roehampton Poetry Prize
‘Stoddart honors the ancient pulse of our art, and in doing so proves her mettle, wisdom, and craft.’ – Adam Tavel, Plume (USA)
‘Colloquial, faintly unruly, the poems travel light on adventures of consciousness, channelling the energies of a big, agnostic imagination into new forms.’ – Carol Rumens, Poetry Review
‘When not confronting life and death as we most vividly encounter them, Stoddart’s poems suggest the ways in which our mortality is ever-present in daily life… Alive Alive O is a compelling book, defiant in the face of life’s losses.’ – Ben Wilkinson, Times Literary Supplement
‘Honest, observant poems from a collection which is both wonderfully unsettling and deeply life-affirming’ – Costa Book Award Judges
FOOL can be bought here: