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The Mike Allen Interview, The News, Portsmouth, April 06 Growing up on a large council estate on the outskirts of Portsmouth, Maggie Sawkins began writing poetry at an early age. She believes her work is influenced by writers she was drawn to as a teenager: Emily Dickinson, Dostoevsky, D H Lawrence, Hermann Hesse, William Blake. Being ‘good at English’ she embarked on a career as a secretary. After finding her way to The Exeter Flying Post, the then editor, Tony Cook, encouraged her to try her hand at writing the odd article and composing the cryptic crossword. She eventually returned to study English with Art at degree level and went on to gain an MA with distinction in creative writing. Maggie lives in Southsea with her husband, daughter and a variety of animals. For the past thirteen years she has worked at South Downs College where she now teaches students with learning difficulties. In 2003 she helped to set up Tongues & Grooves, the popular poetry and music club on the seafront. She has read at The Troubadour as one of their new summer voices, as well as at The Poetry Café and other places including the 2006 Torbay Poetry Festival. Her first poem was published in Hampshire Poets at the age of seventeen, but thinking it was a fluke, she didn’t try again until she was in her thirties. Since then she’s had poems in Writing Women, Mslexia, Acumen, Magma and in many other magazines and anthologies. Her pamphlet Charcot’s Pet (Flarestack) received excellent reviews, and her first full collection, The Zig Zag Woman will be published by Two Ravens Press in September 2007. (more... pdf) Relatively recent poems in the following anthologies: Four Caves of the Heart (Second Light) Images of Women (Arrowhead press / Second Light) The Book of Hopes and Dreams (Bluechrome) Automatic Lighthouse Review (tall-lighthouse) Review comment on Charcot's Pet: ‘ It’s a delight to come across the poems of Maggie Sawkins. The pieces have a strong narrative thread though they leave lots of space for the reader to wonder. …. Charcot’s Pet is a real find …’
Roz Goddard, Raw Edge
magazine. Review comment on Charcot’s
Pet: ‘… these poems are finely wrought thorns that make their way to the brain with slow release damage.’
Kevin Cadwallader,
Sand magazine. ‘… at 39 pages Charcot’s Pet is a short collection, but the overall effect is of a kind of poetic Tardis – much bigger on the inside than the outside – and it will hopefully not be long before this talented writer outgrows the pamphlet form.’ Mark McGuiness, Magma 28. Maggie's Christmas poem poem composed while doing a head stand is available as a gift voucher card
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