Gray, Kathryn

(1973- )

   Welsh poet, born in Caerphilly, Glamorganshire, and raised in Swansea, she studied German and medievalism at the universities of Bristol and York; she currently lives in London, where she works as a freelance writer. She worked as a civil servant at the Wales Office in London, as assistant private secretary to Wales Office Minister Don Touhig. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2001 and her poems have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales and other major journals. Her art, theatre and book reviews have also been published widely. Her first collection, The Never-Never (2004), was short listed for the prestigious Forward Prize for First Collection (2004), and for the T.S. Eliot Prize - the poetry equivalent of the Booker Prize for fiction. Her poems in this collection deal with joy riders in the rainlashed back streets and housing estates of Wales, to London and in California; with love and loss, of friendship, exile and the distant promise of home. Some of her poems: "Saint Anthony of Padua," "The Book of Numbers," "The King's Head," "The Pocket Anglo-Welsh Wardrobe." Canon," "The Storm," “The Wardrobe.”

   Sources: Biography of Kathryn Gray (http://kathrynlouisegray.blogspot.com/). Kathryn Gray's delight at prize shortlist (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/3993591.stm). Poems by Kathryn Gray (http://www.thepoem.co.uk/limelight/gray.htm). Poems by Kathryn Gray (http://www.transcript-review.org/sub.cfm?lan=enandid=2994).