Shapcott, Jo

(1953)

   Born in London, she was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Bristol University, and Harvard, on a Harkness Fellowship in English. She teaches on the M.A. in creative writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, is visiting professor in poetry at the University of Newcastle and the University of the Arts, London, and is consulting editor for Arc Publications. With Matthew Sweeney (see entry) she edited Emergency Kit for Strange Times (1996) and edited Penguin Modern Poetry 12 (1997). Her poems were set to music by composer Stephen Montague in The Creatures Indoors, premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre in London in 1997. She has won six major literary awards and won the National Poetry Competition in 1985 and 1991.

   Some of her other publications: Electroplating the Baby, 1988. Phrase Book, 1992. My Life Asleep, 1998. Last Words Poetry for the New Century, 1999. Her Book: Poems 1988-1998, 2000. Tender Taxes, 2002. Poet of the Periphery, 2002. Some of her poems: "I'm Contemplated by a Portrait of a Divine," "Lies," "Lovebirds," "Mad Cow Dance," "Photograph: Sheepshearing," "Rattlesnake."

   Sources: Biography of Jo Shapcott: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Poetry with an Edge. Neil Astley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1988. The Bloodaxe Book of 20th Century Poetry, from Britain and Ireland. Edna Longley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 2000. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Exeter Book of Riddles. Kevin Crossley-Holland and Lawrence Sail, eds. Enitharmon Press, 1999. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.