Clare Pollard was born in Bolton in 1978 and lives in London. Her collections with Bloodaxe include: The Heavy-Petting Zoo (1998), which she wrote while still at school; Bedtime (2002); Look, Clare! Look! (2005); Changeling (2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; and Incarnation (2017). Her pamphlet The Lives of the Female Poets was published by Bad Betty Press in 2019. Her latest full-length collection – her sixth – Lives of the Female Poets, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2025. Clare’s play The Weather (Faber & Faber, 2004) premiered at the Royal Court Theatre and her documentary for radio, My Male Muse (2007), was a Radio 4 Pick of the Year. Her version of Ovid’s Heroines (2013) toured as a one-woman show, and she co-translated Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf’s The Sea-Migrations (Bloodaxe Books and the Poetry Translation Centre, 2017), which was The Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year. Her non-fiction book Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind our Picture Books was published by Fig Tree in 2019. Her novels for adults, Delphi (2022) and The Modern Fairies (2024), winner of the Tadeusz Bradecki Prize 2025, have been published by Fig Tree in the UK and Avid Reader in the US. Her book for children,The Untameables, illustrated by Reena Makwana, was published by The Emma Press in 2024. Clare Pollard was Editor of Modern Poetry in Translation from 2017 to 2022 and was appointed Artistic Director of the Winchester Poetry Festival in 2022. Her poem ‘Pollen’ – first published in Bad Lilies – was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2022. In 2024 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Author photo © Marcos Avlonitis
