Jamie, Kathleen

(1962- )

   Scottish poet born in Renfrewshire, she graduated M.A. in philosophy from Edinburgh University and now lives in Fifeshire. In 1999 she was appointed lecturer in creative writing at St. Andrews University. She has received several prestigious awards for her poetry, including a Somerset Maugham Award, a Forward Poetry Prize (Best Single Poem), a Paul Hamlyn Award and a Creative Scotland Award, and has twice won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Her collection Mr. and Mrs. Scotland Are Dead (2002)- which contains much of her work written before 1994-was short listed for the Griffin Poetry Prize. The Tree House (2004) won the 2004 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) and the 2005 Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award. Some of her other poetry publications: Black Spiders, 1982. A Flame in Your Heart, 1986 (with Andrew Greig, see entry). The Way We Live, 1987. The Autonomous Region: Poems and Photographs from Tibet, 1993 (with the photographer Sean Mayne Smith). Findings, 2005. Some of her poems: "Arraheids," "Aunt Janet's Museum," "Flower-sellers, Budapest," "Julian of Norwich," "Katie's Poems," "Ultrasound," "War Widow."

   Sources: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Penguin Modern Poets, Book 9. John Burnside, Robert Crawford, and Kathleen Jamie, eds. Penguin Books, 1996. 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 New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse. Robert Crawford and Mick Imlah, ed. Penguin Books, 2000. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Virago Book of Love Poetry. Wendy Mulford, ed. Virago Press, 1990. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).