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Pascale Petit has published four poetry collections including The Huntress and The Zoo Father, which were both shortlisted for the UK’s T.S. Eliot Prize and were books of the year in The Times Literary Supplement. Her latest is The Treekeeper’s Tale (2008) and forthcoming in autumn 2009 The Thorn Necklace: Forty poems after Frida Kahlo (illustrated), all from Seren. The Poetry Book Society and Arts Council named her as one of the Next Generation Poets in 2004. She has won numerous writing awards, including two from Arts Council England to complete The Treekeeper’s Tale and travel to Nepal and China, and she has been shortlisted for a Forward Prize. A bilingual edition of The Zoo Father is published in Mexico and her poems are translated into many languages. In 2008 she took part in the Yellow Mountain Poetry Festival in China and the British Council’s New Silk Route project in Kazakhstan. She originally trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art, has worked as editor of Poetry London 1989–2005 and is now a trustee. She is the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University 2007–9 and tutors for Oxford University, The Poetry School and Tate Modern. Website: http://www.pascalepetit.co.uk The Treekeeper’s Tale: Well known for the fierce confessional imagery of her first three books, The Treekeeper’s Tale points towards another facet of this poet’s gift: an intense feeling for the natural world, allied with a personal response to historical incidents and to other lands. The title section of this four-part collection adopts the giant coast redwood trees of California as a particular talisman. Lyrical, resonant, strange and imaginative, these poems echo in the mind and leave an indelible impression of the mysterious atmosphere of the redwood forests. The second section, ‘Afterlives’, takes us on journeys to the past, as in the burial of a Siberian priestess, and on trips to other places including China, Nepal and Kazakhstan. The colourful paintings of the German expressionist Franz Marc provide the key to the third section, ‘War Horse’, where dramatic imagery of the horses blends and contrasts with the fate of Europe during World War One. Finally, ‘The Chrysanthemum Lantern’ features sensitive translations from Chinese originals. Comment on Pascale's work: "No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit." Les Murray, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year
“She operates a glittery, concise, deeply responsible magic realism, which explores the exotic, the wilderness and the faraway scrupulously for their own sake, but also as leaping metaphors for self, and for the relationships of home.” Ruth Padel, Independent on Sunday
“Our eyes are opened to the abundance and colour of the world, and that world seems remade as a life-giving habitat for the imagination.” Kathleen
Jamie and Maurice Riordan,
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