Stainer, Pauline

(1941- )

   Born in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, she graduated in English from St. Anne's College, Oxford, and took an M.Phil. at Southampton University. Her poetry explores sacred myth, legend, history-inlandscape, and human feeling, with a strong influence from her industrial background. She was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 1987, and came to public notice with her first volume, the Honeycomb (1989). Sighting the Slave Ship (1992) contains poems in homage to many prominent figures, including the illustrator and war artist Eric Ravilious, who died in 1942 when the Coastal Command airplane from Iceland on which he was traveling disappeared. She spent several years on the Orkney island of Rousay, from which came her book collection Parable Island (1999). She now lives in Hadleigh, Suffolk, England. Her other publications: Little Eg ypt, 1991. The Ice-Pilot Speaks, 1994. The Wound-dresser's Dream, 1996. A Litany of High Waters, 2002. The Lady and the Hare: New and Selected Poems, 2003. Some of her poems: "Bleaklow," "Sarcophagus," "The Figurehead," "The Gargoyles," "The Honeycomb," "The Seals."

   Sources: New Blood, Neil Astley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1999. Poetry with an Edge. Neil Astley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1988. The New Exeter Book of Riddles. Kevin Crossley-Holland and Lawrence Sail, ed. Enitharmon Press, 1999. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).