Angela Kirby was born in rural Lancashire in 1932 and now lives in London. Apart from bringing up five children, she has worked as, amongst other things, a cleaner, dog-walker, washer-up, waitress, chef, painter-and-decorator, garden-designer, free-lance journalist and non-fiction writer (5 books and booklets so far, on cooking, gardening and related subjects).

She has an M.A. in Language, Art  and Education from Sussex University and completed a DPhil, also in Creative Writing, also from Sussex University, in 2006.

Her poems have appeared in many magazines (Ambit, Litmus, Magma, Moonstone, The Rialto, Samphire, Weyfarers, Writing Women etc, several anthologies, and also On the Buses, have  been read on BBC 2 TV (5 to 11) and BBC Radio 4's  Poetry Please and  Woman's Hour and have won a handful of prizes in competitions including the  Arvon,  Kent Open, National, Peterloo, Southwark, Surrey Open, Torriano, Wandsworth London Writers, and Ware Open.

Angela was the B.B.C.1's Wildlife Poet of the Year in 1996 (joint winner) and 2001.  She gives regular poetry  readings in England, Spain and the USA.

Shoestring Press brought out her first full collection, Mr. Irresistible, in October 2005 and her second, Dirty Work, in 2008.

Dirty Work, 2008, £8.95 incl p&p,  ISBN 978-1-904886-83-9
Mr Irresistible, 2005, £8.95 incl p&p, ISBN 1-904886-19-1 (2008, 2nd re-print)
                                         both available direct from Angela

Comments on her work:

Humane and well-crafted work ....a consistently high standard.

Michael Donaghy

I loved in particular the elegant balance that you¹d struck between form and image - a far rarer talent than is generally appreciated

Don Paterson

skillful and engaging, as well as moving

Neil Astley

Angela Kirby's poems delight with feisty detail and move us with their honesty and directness.

Maurice Riordan

She has plenty to say through the  medium of poetry as well as highly developed linguistic and rhetorical gifts .

Christopher Reid

The dignified treatment of death, the plaintiveness of memory, the beautifully confident use of the big old words, the sheer candour of the feeling, all make this a body of work I am grateful to have read.

Professor F. Inglis

Angela Kirby is one of poetry's most naturally engaging and expressive communicators. Her poems have been rightly appreciated for their candour, and elegance of form.

Cat's Night Out

e-mail Angela

and in the shop...
"The Days After Always, new & selected",
"A Scent of Winter" (2013),
"Dirty Work",
(2008)
and
"Mr Irresistible",
(2005,
2nd reprint, 2008),
Shoestring Press

  anthology -
"A Twist of Malice"

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