Caroline Bird
Encyclopedia
Life
Bird was born in 1986. She grew up in Leeds and attended the Steiner School in York and the Lady Eleanor Holles SchoolLady Eleanor Holles School
The Lady Eleanor Holles School is an independent school for girls in Hampton, London, England. The school was founded in 1711.-Admissions:...
before moving to London in 2001. She studied English Literature at Oxford University and was president of the Oxford Poetry Society. She has given poetry readings at The Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
(with Elaine Feinstein
Elaine Feinstein
Elaine Feinstein is a poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator.-Biography:...
), Latitude Festival, the Wellcome Collection (with Don Paterson
Don Paterson
Don Paterson, OBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet, writer and musician.-Background:Paterson was born in Dundee. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990 and his poem A Private Bottling won the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition in 1993. He was included on the list of 20 poets chosen for the...
), St Hilda's College, Oxford
St Hilda's College, Oxford
St Hilda's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.The college was founded in 1893 as a hall for women, and remained an all-women's college until 2006....
(with Wendy Cope
Wendy Cope
Wendy Cope, OBE is an award-winning contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely with the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.-Biography:...
), the Wordsworth Trust (with Gillian Allnutt
Gillian Allnutt
Gillian Allnutt is an English poet who now lives in Esh Winning, County Durham. Her books Nantucket and the Angel and Lintel were both shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2001/02 and 2002/03 she was a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow, partly at Newcastle University...
), Cheltenham Festival
Cheltenham Festival
The Cheltenham Festival is one of the most prestigious meetings in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, and has race prize money second only to the Grand National...
(with Clare Pollard
Clare Pollard
Clare Pollard is an English poet and playwright. Born in 1978 and raised in Bolton, Pollard read English at Cambridge University. She published her first collection, The Heavy-Petting Zoo, with Bloodaxe in 1998 aged 19. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2000, and has gone on to write three more...
) and Ledbury Festival, amongst others.
Published works
Caroline Bird has published three collections of poetry. Her first collection, Looking Through Letterboxes (published in 2002 when she was 15), is a collection of poems built on the traditions of fairy tale, fantasy and romance. Her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim.Bird's poems have been published in several anthologies and are published regularly in PN Review, Poetry Review and The North magazine. Her poems and a commissioned short story, Sucking Eggs, have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
. A member of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme, Bird has also written six plays: Nothing to Say, The Pie, Lumberjills, A Hymn With Drums, Student Play and A Special Boy (recently performed at the Burton Taylor Theatre in Oxford.)
She will also be partaking in the Bush Theatre
Bush Theatre
The Bush Theatre is based in Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 above The Bush public house by Brian McDermott, and has since become one of the most celebrated new writing theatres in the world. An intimate venue renowned for its close-up...
's 2011 project Sixty Six where she has written a piece based upon a chapter of the King James Bible
Prizes and Recognition
Caroline Bird was a winner of the Poetry London Competition in 2007, the Peterloo Poetry Competition for three years running (2004, 2003 and 2002), a major Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and the Foyles Young Poet of the Year Award in 1999 and 2000. She was shortlisted for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001. Caroline was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas PrizeDylan Thomas Prize
The Dylan Thomas Prize is the world’s top cash prize for young writers. The annual prize, named in honor of the Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas, brings international prestige and a cash award of £30,000 . It is open to published writers in the English language under the age of thirty. The prize...
in 2008, and was the youngest writer on the list at 21. Caroline was shortlisted again for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2010.
Caroline is currently on the shortlist for The Woman Of The Future Awards 2011.