Jane Routh’s a poet and photographer who manages woodlands and a flock of geese in the Forest of Bowland, North Lancashire, where she’s lived for the last forty years. Before poetry claimed all her creative energies, Jane’s photographs were exhibited in group and solo shows in the north and midlands. Since then, she’s published three full collections of poems and has been shortlisted for a Forward prize and received a PBS recommendation, as well as publishing a pamphlet and anthologised selections, including some creative non-fiction. She won the Academi Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 2009 (see Academi Competition), and the Strokestown International Poetry Competition in 2011 (see Strokestown Competition).
 
Jane is a member of SIXFOLD, a Lancaster-based group of poets who present themed readings; she reviews – mainly poetry – for Stride, Magma and The North and also makes small editions of artist’s pamphlets.
 
Her most recent readings have been for the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, Off the Shelf in Sheffield and Lancaster Litfest. She read some of her sea poetry for the ‘Sea Britain’ celebrations in Greenwich in 2005 and was one of nine UK poets participating in ‘Random Acts of Poetry’ that year. An experienced teacher, she was a tutor for The Poetry Business Writing School 2004-6.
 
 
Review Comments
 

Circumnavigation (Smith/Doorstop 2002 ISBN 1-902382-80-9) won the Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition and was shortlisted for the First Collection Forward Prize:
 

…the assured, original voice of a poet who can give her poems a charge of energy by taking risks with language.

 

Elizabeth Burns
 
 

Teach Yourself Mapmaking (Smith/Doorstop 2006 ISBN1-902382-80-9):
 

…is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, deservedly so. Its range is impressive, its vivid language recreates the physical sensation of what is being described, ranging from the gritty and muscular to the tender and deeply thoughtful. Smith/Doorstop have a star on their list.

 

Matt Simpson
 
 

The Gift of Boats (Smith/Doorstop 2010 ISBN 1-906613-22-8):
 

…the strength of imagery, quality of line and rhythm, and sheer exuberance of language at work…hit me immediately.

 

Mark Burnhope
 

Routh’s poems ask to be read aloud

 

T.L.S.
 
 

Waiting for H5N1 (Templar Poetry 2007 ISBN 987 1 906285067):
 

… a poetry pamphlet that could almost be a miniature novel… It’s elegant, tough stuff with a string ring of authenticity, and exactly the sort of short, sharp concept that suits the poetry pamphlet.

 

Jon Stone
 
 

Other publications include a selection of poems in The Allotment: New Lyric Poets, ed. Andy Brown (Stride 2006), and a selection of creative non-fiction in Mostly Truthful, (Flax 19), published as an anthology to download by Lancaster Litfest’s Flax Books. download Mostly Truthful
 
Jane is a contributor to Necessary Steps, ed. David Kennedy (Shearsman 2007) and many of her review articles are available at Stride Magazine.