Deryn Rees-Jones was born in Liverpool with family links to North Wales. Her poetry collections (all Seren) are The Memory Tray (1995), Signs Round a Dead Body (1998), Quiver (2004) and Burying the Wren (2012), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Erato (2019) was also a PBS Recommendation, and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and The Welsh Book of the Year. Her selected poems, What It’s Like to Be Alive (2016) was a PBS Special Commendation. Hôtel Amour is published by Seren in 2025. Critical works include Consorting with Angels, on twentieth century women’s poetry, published alongside Modern Women Poets (both Bloodaxe, 2005). Recent projects include the monograph Paula Rego: The Art of Story (Thames & Hudson, 2019); the exhibition, The Errant Muse, with the artist Charlotte Hodes, shown at Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum in 2019; and the British Academy funded project, Yemen in Conflict, collaborating with colleagues at the University of Leeds and the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival; and the Poems for Peace Project, which brings together writers to think together about poetry, conflict and resolution. In 2005 Deryn was chosen as one of the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation poets. She is Professor of Poetry at the University of Liverpool, and the editor of the Pavilion Poetry series for Liverpool University Press.
Shortlisted Works
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