Rookie

Longlisted for the Polari Book Prize 2023.Caroline Bird is one of Carcanet's most popular poets. Her startling instinct for metaphor, the courage of her choice of subjects and the integrity of her witness, set her apart: a poem is a risk, and it has to be a risk worth taking for the poet and for the reader.Starting with Looking through Letterboxes in 2002 when she was fifteen years old, she has published six Carcanet books, culminating in The Air Year which was awarded the Forward Prize in 2020, shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize, and a Book of the Year in the Telegraph, Guardian and White Review.Rookie presents a formidable body of work composed over two decades from one of the poetry world's most energetic and consistently compelling voices.

“'A stream of fun, juxtaposing disorientating pictures to form an abstract map of everything it means to fall in and out of love.' --Belinda Stiles, Stand Magazine 'Bird is irrepressible; she simply explodes with poetry. The work erupts, spring-loaded, funny, sad, deadly - you don't know if a bullet will come out of the barrel or a flag with the word BANG on it.' --Simon Armitage 'Her poems burst with linguistic energy' -- TLS”

'A stream of fun, juxtaposing disorientating pictures to form an abstract map of everything it means to fall in and out of love.' - Belinda Stiles, Stand Magazine; 'Bird is irrepressible; she simply explodes with poetry. The work erupts, spring-loaded, funny, sad, deadly - you don't know if a bullet will come out of the barrel or a flag with the word BANG on it.' - Simon Armitage; 'Her poems burst with linguistic energy' - TLS

Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright. Her 2020 collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020 and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize and the Costa Prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes, was published in 2002 when she was fifteen. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010. As a playwright, Bird has been shortlisted for the George Devine Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her theatre credits include: The Trojan Women (Gate Theatre, 2012), The Trial of Dennis the Menace (Purcell Room, 2012), Chamber Piece (Lyric Hammersmith, 2013), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Northern Stage, 2015), The Iphigenia Quartet (Gate Theatre, 2016) and Red Ellen (Northern Stage, Nottingham Playhouse, Royal Lyceum Theatre and York Theatre Royal, 2022). She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics.

Caroline Bird is one of Carcanets most popular poets. Her startling instinct for metaphor, the courage of her choice of subjects and the integrity of her witness, set her apart: a poem is a risk, and it has to be a risk worth taking for the poet and for the reader. Starting with Looking through Letterboxes in 2002 when she was fifteen years old, she has published six Carcanet books, culminating in The Air Year which was awarded the Forward Prize in 2020, shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize, and a Book of the Year in the Telegraph, Guardian and White Review. Rookie presents a formidable body of work composed over two decades from one of the poetry worlds most energetic and consistently compelling voices.

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