Maguire, Sarah

(1957- )

   Born in West London (where she still lives), she trained as a gardener before attending university and then became a full-time poet and broadcaster. She is a creative writing tutor and is currently the writing fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. The founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre, she runs poetry translation workshops. She was the first writer to be sent to Palestine (1996) and to Yemen (1998) by the British Council. Since then she has been active in translating contemporary Arabic poetry into English. Her selected poems, Haleeb Muraq, translated by the leading Iraqi poet, Saadi Yousef, was published in Damascus in 2003. Some of her publications: Spilt Milk, 1991. The Invisible Mender, 1997. A Green Thought in a Green Shade: Poetry in the Garden, 2000. Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse (editor), 2001. The Florist's at Midnight, 2001. Some of her poems: "Communion," "Perfect Timing," "The Divorce Referendum," "The Fall." Her translated poems: "A Monkey at the Window," "At Thirty, the Party is Over," "Breathless," "Song," "Survivors."

   Sources: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times. Jo Shapcott and Matthew Sweeney, eds. Faber and Faber, 1996. Love's Witness: Five Centuries of Love Poetry by Women. Jill Hollis, ed. Carroll and Graf, Inc., 1993. Making for Planet Alice: New Women Poets. Maura Dooley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1997. Sarah Maguire, The Poetry Translation Centre (http://www.poetrytranslation.soas.ac.uk/poets/index.cfm?type=3&poet=18). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org).