Maggie Butt is a British poet and novelist, and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Kent in Canterbury. She is also an Associate Professor at Middlesex University, London, where she has taught creative writing since 1990.
 
Her fifth collection of poetry Degrees of Twilight was published by The London Magazine in July 2015, and her novel House of Dreams (published as Maggie Brookes) by Endeavour Press in November 2015.
 
Maggie returned to her first love of poetry after a career spanning many other forms of writing. After an English degree at Cardiff University she became a newspaper reporter, moving to BBC TV as a documentary writer / producer / director.
 
Her pamphlet Quintana Roo was published by Acumen Publications in 2003 and her first full collection, Lipstick, was published in 2007 by Greenwich Exchange. In 2010 a collection of pocket-sized poems, petite, was published by Hearing Eye and in 2011, Oversteps Books published Ally Pally Prison Camp, the story of 3,000 civilians imprisoned at Alexandra Palace during the First World War told through a historical collage of poems, photos, paintings and extracts from memoirs and letters. Sancti Clandestini – Undercover Saints, a fully illustrated poetry collection was published in 2012 by Ward-Wood Publishing. An exhibition to accompany the book was held at The Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden.
 
Maggie’s poetry appears widely in international magazines and has escaped the page into a mobile phone app, choreography, BBC Radio 4, readings, festivals, and schools. In May 2016 Maggie was proud to be one of six British poets who went to Romania to work with the MA students of Bucharest University under the poetry pRO scheme.
 
Maggie was Chair of the National Association of Writers in Education from 2007 to 2012 and founding Principal Editor of its peer reviewed journal Writing in Practice. She has a PhD in creative writing from Cardiff University. In 2007 her edited collection of essays: Story The Heart of the Matter was published by Greenwich Exchange.
 
Maggie lives in North London and Whitstable with her husband. They have two grown-up daughters.
 
Her website is www.maggiebutt.co.uk
 
Reviews for Degrees of Twilight (The London Magazine 2015):

 
 

Maggie Butt’s fifth collection gives a rewardingly balanced overview of her poetic virtuosity and achievement. Some poets do loss and some do epiphany; some do simplicity and some do complexity; some do fun and some do trauma. Scarcely any, however, are doing all of these with the same high levels of acumen, consistency and lyric poise as Maggie Butt. This latest collection is her best yet. A many-layered delight.

 

Laurie Evan Owen

 
 

The poems are superb – so poised and rich. They are delicate and razored and really speak to me. … They open things up, have assurance and dance.

 

Shelagh Weeks

 
 

… poetry, as Maggie Butt realises in her brilliant new collection, Degrees of Twilight can simultaneously hold in its hand the present, past and future. This is the poetry of simultaneity, of synchronicity, as multiple pasts, presents and futures co-exist in the same poems, sometimes even same lines.

 

Jonathan Taylor

 
 

Degrees of Twilight is a fine collection of atmospheric and evocative memory-poems which are all the more enjoyable because of the strong strand of appreciation and gratitude that runs through them.

 

Thomas Ovans

 
 

Maggie Butt’s fifth collection doesn’t disappoint. Her poetry is unashamedly accessible and heart-warming, but it is also thought-provoking and profound, confirming that simplicity and its impact often require a complex art.

 

June Hall

 
 

Reviews of previous collections:

 
 

Maggie Butt’s miniatures are witty, wise, original and compassionate, with a vision which ranges from the mundane to the sublime, and a concern for the language and craft of poetry which is apparent on every page.

 

James Aitchison

 
 

… poems that are lyrical, highly-visual, and that dance off the page with delightful immediacy.

 

Katherine Gallagher

 
 

Maggie Butt is a poet with a supple intelligence which joins neatly with her sense of music. This makes her take on reality a pleasure to read.

 

Sebastian Barker

 
 

… powerful writing … sharp insight here as well as moving, lyrical writing.

 

Dilys Wood