Faber New Poets
Series · 10 books · 2009-2016
Books in series
#2
Faber New Poets 2
2009
Song an 'arrogant little tool,' that was Migdale. All five foot four of him. Always scratching his head and looking pained and adjusting himself. The last time I saw him, it was his well-fed silhouette straddling the gate in half-light, 'too busy' to come in good time for the birth, and 'too poor' for the vet, instead he came like a thief in the night, shooing the crows and draping an inverse, eyeless thing over his shoulder with disdain like a soiled boa. As he sloped away, his back grew dark with burst caul, the slipped halo of that 'poor fellow.' Goodbye, little song. Goodbye, Migdale. They said in the village you were an absentee landlord, a shirker, a fool. But nightfall and sun-up wait at your beck and call.
#3
Faber New Poets 3
2009
Funded by Arts Council England, the Faber New Poets programme is an exciting new venture whose aim is to create a culture of support for select new poets at pre-first collection stage. By offering a tri-partite package of financial assistance, mentorship and pamphlet publication by Faber, the scheme intends to provide care and direction to four talented new stars in 2009, with four similar awards to be made in 2010. In 2009, the awarded poets are Fiona Benson, Heather Phillipson Toby Martinez de las Rivas and Jack Underwood.
#6
Faber New Poets 6
2010
The baker's daughter
is watching me through the reed-slicks,
her eyes surrounded by floury feathers.
Her wings canvas the river. I dip
my twitching toes in her waters, her eyes
pull me in as she says if she could she'd go back,
back to before her life turned owl: she'd give him
all the bread he wanted, she'd bake forever
then pile up his pockets and run, her arms
burnt from the loaves.
My eyes itch like yeast. She says they hate
our flowers and songs, our stupid owlish faces,
and her mud slurps my violets, I sink my knees down
into her fishes and bubbles and claws.
'No girl can ever die honest,' she toots,
tugging me in with her beak.
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
In 2010, the awarded poets are Joe Dunthorne, Annie Katchinska, Sam Riviere and Tom Warner.
#9
Faber New Poets 9
2014
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Rachael Allen was born in 1989 in Cornwall and studied English Literature at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the online and poetry editor for Granta, co-editor of poetry anthology series Clinic and online journal Tender. Her poetry has appeared in The Best British Poetry 2013 (Salt), Poetry London, the Sunday Times, the White Review online, Stop Sharpening Your Knives 5, Dear World and Everyone In it (Bloodaxe), Night & Day (Chatto & Windus) and Five Dials. Her reviews and other writing have appeared in Ambit magazine, Dazed and Confused and Music & Literature.
#10
Faber New Poets 10
2014
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Will Burns was born in London and raised in Buckinghamshire. He didn't finish his English degree, choosing instead to start a band with his brother, releasing two albums. He worked in factories, cleaning windows and painting houses before settling in the music industry. He likes sports and ornithology and is proud to be Poet-In-Residence at Caught By The River and Festival No.6. His poems have been published by Structo Magazine, South Bank Poetry, The Illustrated Ape and the Independent Online, and he has appeared at the Glastonbury, Port Eliot, End of the Road and Green Man Festivals.
#11
Faber New Poets 11
Part 11
2014
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Zaffar Kunial was born in Birmingham and currently lives in Cumbria where he has just become the 2014 Wordsworth Trust Poet in Residence. His poem Hill Speak was placed third in the 2011 National Poetry Competition. In 2012 he won a Northern Writers' Award of £5000. A graduate of the LSE, for the last five years Zaffar has worked as a full-time 'Creative Writer' for Hallmark cards in West Yorkshire. Hill Speak is his only published poem.
#13
Faber New Poets 13
2016
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Elaine Beckett grew up in Kent, and studied music, film, and architecture in London. She has mainly worked as a university lecturer. In 2008 she moved to Dorset where she joined a poetry group led by Annie Freud. Her poems have been longlisted for The Bridport Prize, and in 2012 she won the Bridport's Dorset Award. Her poems have been published in Templar's Skein anthology, South Bank Poetry, and the Bloodaxe Raving Beauties anthology, Hallelujah For 50ft Women.
#14
Faber New Poets 14
2016
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Crispin Best lives in London and at crispinbest.com. He edits For Every Year, an online project aiming to collect a piece of art or writing in honour of every year since 1400. His writing has appeared in The Best British Poetry 2015 (Salt), the Quietus, Dazed & Confused, Poems in Which, and clinic, among other places. He has performed his poetry to audiences in New York, Chicago, Berlin, Melbourne, Edinburgh, and at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
#15
Faber New Poets 15
2016
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term. Sam Buchan-Watts was born in London in 1989. He studied English Literature at Goldsmiths and Creative Writing at UEA. He is a co-editor of the poetry anthology series, clinic. His poems have appeared in Poetry London and Salt's Best British Poetry series, and his articles in PN Review, i-D and elsewhere.
#16
Faber New Poets 16
2016
Funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Rachel Curzon was born in Leeds in 1978. She studied English at Oxford, trained to be a teacher in London, and now teaches in a boys' school in Hampshire. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and was a runner-up in the Bridport Prize in the same year. Her poems have appeared in the Rialto, Poetry London and Magma. She lives in Andover.
Authors
Zaffar Kunial
Author · 4 books
Zaffar Kunial's 'Us' (Faber & Faber, 2018) was shortlisted for a number of awards including the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Costa Poetry Award. 'Kunial’s gift is to examine language in a clinically precise manner to measure belonging, distance and love.' (John Glenday) ' With an impressive clutch of techniques, Kunial is a fine teller of stories.' (Alison Brackenbury, PN Review) Reviews for 'Us': 'Rich in form and reverent references, Us transports the reader from the hills of Pakistan to the schoolgrounds of Stratford-upon-Avon, from George Herbert to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.' (Maria Crawford, Financial Times, BOOKS OF THE YEAR) 'His first full book, which has come together slowly, patiently, over several years... He can do clear-eyed and tender inside a single poem, without any hint of glibness. Fun fact: he used to earn his living writing verse for Hallmark cards.' (The 20 best poetry books of 2018, The Spinoff, New Zealand) 'Zaffar Kunial possesses that rare quality of negative capability which Keats first identified in Shakespeare (a guiding spirit in this, Kunial’s first collection); the poems hold us among mysteries and doubts, without pronouncing or attempting to resolve. Their beauty lies in their indecisiveness – their quiet refusal to settle matters or hold to a single view.' (Rebecca Watts, Times Literary Supplement) 'Highlights of the year include the Heaney-esque lyricism of British-Indian poet Zaffar Kunial's accomplished debut Us.' (Tristram Fane Saunders, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year) Reviews for 'Six': 'Kunial’s style is a wise vernacular that Auden would have loved . . . Six is a pamphlet to read and re-read; its words are so plain and so well put together that you won’t realise until much later how permanently they’ve marked you, like a grass stain.' (Alex Hayden-Williams, Varsity) 'Zaffar Kunial, King for a Summer of The Oval, the country’s best pace bowler of the human heart.' (John Andrews, Caught By The River)
