Author Archives: Rachel Bower

‘”Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul…’ (Emily Dickinson) I am delighted that I will be the Guest Editor of the A3 Review for the next few months. The magazine that behaves like a map! We are now open for submissions on the theme of #Hope. Dangerous hope, the audacity […]

There are only three days left to enter the Liz Ferrets Poetry Competition judged by me, Sez Thomasin and Kate Garrett. Liz was a brilliant poet and performer from Sheffield and the competition celebrates her life and writing. The winners will be announced at The Showroom (Sheffield) on Monday 17 January. The competition is free […]

I am happy to have just had two poems published in the Christmas Special of the Bangor Literary Journal, guest edited by Gaynor Kane. The special issue is available to download free. Thank you to Gaynor, and to the editors, Amy Louise Wyatt and Paul Daniel Rafferty, for all their hard work. Merry Christmas to […]

This is the proof of my review of Rebecca Goss‘s Girl (Carcanet, 2019), published in the most recent issue of Stand Magazine (17.3), guest edited by Vahni Capildeo. Rebecca Goss’s Girl sparks with light, electricity, bodies. This collection of spare, precise poems, characterised by Goss’s distinctive control of her material, not only explores what it is to […]

I am delighted that my story, “Holly”, has been long-listed for the Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Short Story Award. Congratulations to everyone on the list, and thank you to the judges for their time and hard work!

I’ve been working on the Collections in Verse project for Sheffield – a collaborative commission with Poet in the City and The British Library. As part of this project, I’m running a series of workshops to listen to the tales and experiences that are important to women in Sheffield. The workshops will ask women what […]

Platypus Press have just revealed the stunning cover of their new anthology of contemporary poetry from the UK, aptly titled, Islands Are But Mountains. It’s an honour to have poems published in this book, alongside so many wonderful poets. The anthology is now available to pre-order.

It has been a pleasure working with Yin Xiaoyuan at the Encyclopedic Poetry School in China, who are celebrating their 12th anniversary this year. Xiaoyuan has translated a number of my poems into Chinese, and continues to work tirelessly to translate poems from all over the world. The Encyclopedic Poetry School is an independent, experimental […]

It was an honour to read at the London Launch of Magma 74: The Work Issue, edited by the brilliant Pauline Seawards and Benedict Newbery. The Work Issue includes my poem, ‘Continue on Loop’: a sestina that marks the unrecognised labour of parenting, and hopes to speak to the intense love and exhilaration of motherhood, […]

This is the proof of my review of Poetry, Print, and the Making of Postcolonial Literature by Nathan Suhr-Sytsma (CUP, 2017), recently published by the Journal of Postcolonial Writing. This ambitious book opens with an anecdote about the accomplished Nigerian poet, Christopher Okigbo. In 1965, Okigbo published a poem in a volume of essays to mark […]

There are some excellent things going on in South Yorkshire at the moment. The Sheaf Poetry Festival has an awesome line-up of events, including a special Verse Matters on Thursday 23rd at Sheffield Theatre Deli with Vanessa Kisuule, Caleb Femi, Rupinder Kaur and Otis Mensah. Tickets are still available for the other Sheaf Poetry Festival […]