Wicks, Susan

(1947- )

   Born in Kent, she read French at the Universities of Hull and Sussex, and wrote a Ph.D. thesis on André Gide (French writer, 1869-1951). She has lived and worked in France, Ireland and America and has taught at University College, Dublin, and the University of Kent. She was included in the Poetry Society's "New Generation Poets" promotion in 1994. Her short memoir, Driving My Father, (1995) is an account of her relationship with her increasingly dependent father following her mother's death in 1992. Her novels are The Key (1997), the story of a middle-aged woman haunted by the memory of a former lover, and Little Thing (1998), about a young woman living in France adjusting to life with a new baby. Her poetry publications: Singing Underwater, 1992 (which won the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize). Open Diagnosis, 1994. The Clever Daughter, 1996 (short listed for both the T.S. Eliot and Forward prizes). Night Toad: New and Selected Poems, 2003. Some of her poems: "Buying Fish," "Joy," "Knot," "Moderato," "On Re-recording Mozart," "Protected Species," "Rain Dance," "Stiltwalker," "The Clever Daughter," "Voice."

   Sources: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times. Jo Shapcott and Matthew Sweeney, eds. Faber and Faber, 1996. Making for Planet Alice: New Women Poets. Maura Dooley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1997. Parents: An Anthology of Poems by Women Writers. Myra Schneider and Dilys Wood, eds. Enitharmon Press, 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 Oxford Book of Sonnets. John Fuller, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.