Pelt (Bloodaxe, 2012)

Winner of the Seamus Heaney Award

Longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award

Supported by the Arts Council, Sarah’s debut poetry collection Pelt won the Seamus Heaney Poetry Prize in 2013 and was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award in 2012, where it was described as having ‘stunned [the reader] in a way that a great book should’.

‘Sarah Jackson’s Pelt is out on its own. At once peirastic and assured, these are poems of disturbing grace and power. The title-word is already disorientating: a sense of speed and assault goes with the skin and fur of what is, perhaps, not or no longer or no longer only human. Jackson’s poems have a compelling strangeness, uncomfortably intimate and elusive at the same time. You are not sure what distance to occupy in relation to them. It is a poetry of glints and disclosures, by turns gentle and menacing, diurnal and surreal, erotic and deranged. In radical and original fashion, Pelt prompts feelings “we can neither know / nor name”. Here is a new voice, a pelting of voices in English poetry.’ – Nicholas Royle

‘These poems have a dream-like, hallucinatory quality. Intriguing and mysterious, they transform childhood memory, myth, experiences of place, everything Sarah Jackson draws on for material, into surreal and vivid narratives.’ – Vicki Feaver

Milk (Pighog, 2008)

Shortlisted for the inaugural Michael Marks Award in association with the British Library

‘Sarah Jackson’s poems are dark, strange stories, immaculately crafted. Surprising, dextrous, sometimes shocking, they compel the reader into uncertain territory. This is an assured first pamphlet from a cool and original new voice.’ – Polly Clark

‘Sarah Jackson’s poems are full of disquiet and are highly impressive. She is an original voice. It does my heart good to read poems like hers, full of promise and talent.’ – Brendan Cleary

‘Sarah’s poetry explores … the realms beyond the obvious, the literal and the physical, in stunningly succinct imagery. These poems combine technical brilliance with an extraordinary imagination.’ – Catherine Smith

Sarah has published her poetry in magazines and journals including 1110, Aesthetica, The Echo Room, Envoi, Folio, Irish Pages, Magma, New Walk, The New Writer, The North, Other Poetry, Poetry South, The Rialto, Staple, and Tate Online. She is featured in The Best British Poetry 2011, edited by Roddy Lumsden (Salt, 2011) and in Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century, edited by Clare Pollard and James Byrne (Bloodaxe, 2009). Sarah’s work has been placed in competitions including the Edwin Morgan Prize and the Arvon International Poetry Prize and she has read her poetry across the UK and beyond.

Selected readings:

• Southwell Poetry Festival (July 2014)
• Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Galway, Ireland (April 2014)
• Tom Quinlan Reading, New York University (November 2013)
• Bath Spa University (April 2013)
• Breckland Book Festival (March 2013)
• The Royal Albert Hall, Elgar Room, Proms Plus Late series (August 2012)
• York University (June 2012)
• Brighton Festival Fringe (May 2012)
• Mlade Rime Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia (June 2011)
• Manchester Literary Festival (October 2010)
• Cuisle Poetry Festival, Limerick, Ireland (October 2010)
• Magma Showcase, The Troubadour, London (November, 2009)
• Poet in the City: Voice Recognition, King’s Place, London (September, 2009)
• Michael Marks Reading, The British Library, London (June 2009)