Pascale Petit
Encyclopedia
Pascale Petit is a poet. She grew up in France and Wales. She trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art and was a visual artist for the first part of her life. She has travelled widely, particularly in the Venezuelan Amazon and China.
She has published five poetry collections: Heart of a Deer (1998), The Zoo Father (2001), The Huntress (2005), The Treekeeper's Tale (2008) and What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (2010). She also published a pamphlet of poems The Wounded Deer: Fourteen Poems after Frida Kahlo (2005).
Recommendation. What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo
, The Huntress and The Zoo Father were all shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize
and were books of the year in The Observer, Times Literary Supplement and the Independent. What the Water Gave Me was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. Petit has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize and in 2001 she was one of ten poets commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to write a poem for National Poetry Day. In 2004, she was selected by the Poetry Book Society as one of the Next Generation poets. The Zoo Father is published in a bilingual edition in Mexico and distributed in Spain and Latin America. She has received many awards, including three from Arts Council England and two from the Society of Authors. Her poems have been translated into eighteen languages. She has translated poems of a number of contemporary Chinese poets including Yang Lian
, Wang Xiaoni and Zhai Yongming
. She was Poetry Editor of Poetry London from 1990-2005 and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University from 2007-9. She tutors poetry courses for Tate Modern
, the Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School and the Taliesin Trust. She is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
The Australian poet Les Murray
has praised her work in the Times Literary Supplement, where he wrote: "No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit." Jackie Kay
in The Observer wrote "Pascale's poems are as fresh as paint, and make you look all over again at Frida and her brilliant and tragic life." Ruth Padel
, reviewing What the Water Gave Me – Poems after Frida Kahlo in The Guardian
wrote "Petit's collection is not a verse biography, but a hard-hitting, palette-knife evocation of the effect that bus crash had on Kahlo's life and work. "And this is how I started painting. / Time stretched out its spectrum / and screeched its brakes." WH Auden, in his elegy for Yeats
, tells the Irish poet: "Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry." Petit's collection, exploring the way trauma hurts an artist into creation, celebrates the rebarbative energy with which Kahlo redeemed pain and transformed it into paint."
Heart of a Deer (Enitharmon, 1998)
Tying the Song Co-editor with Mimi Khalvati
(Enitharmon, 2000)
The Zoo Father (Seren, 2001)
El Padre Zoológico/The Zoo Father (El Tucan, Mexico City, 2004)
The Huntress (Seren, 2005)
The Wounded Deer: Fourteen poems after Frida Kahlo pamphlet (Smith Doorstop, 2005)
The Treekeeper's Tale (Seren, 2008)
What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, UK, 2010, Black Lawrence Press, US, 2011)
Poetry from Art at Tate Modern editor, pamphlet (Tate Publications, 2010)
• 2001 New London Writers' Award
• 2001 Arts Council England Writers' Award
• 2001 The Zoo Father Poetry Book Society
Recommendation
• 2001 The Zoo Father shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize
• 2005 The Huntress shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize
• 2005 Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award
• 2006 Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award
• 2006 Society of Author's Author's Foundation Award
• 2007-9 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University
• 2010 What the Water Gave Me shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize
• 2011 What the Water Gave me shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year
• 2011 Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at Courtauld Institute of Art
She has published five poetry collections: Heart of a Deer (1998), The Zoo Father (2001), The Huntress (2005), The Treekeeper's Tale (2008) and What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (2010). She also published a pamphlet of poems The Wounded Deer: Fourteen Poems after Frida Kahlo (2005).
Background
Petit's The Zoo Father was a Poetry Book SocietyPoetry Book Society
The Poetry Book Society was founded by T. S. Eliot and friends in 1953. Each quarter the Society selects one recently published collection of poetry for its members. The Society also publishes the quarterly poetry journal Bulletin, and it administers the competition for the annual T. S. Eliot Prize...
Recommendation. What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....
, The Huntress and The Zoo Father were all shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize
T. S. Eliot Prize
The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...
and were books of the year in The Observer, Times Literary Supplement and the Independent. What the Water Gave Me was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. Petit has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize and in 2001 she was one of ten poets commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to write a poem for National Poetry Day. In 2004, she was selected by the Poetry Book Society as one of the Next Generation poets. The Zoo Father is published in a bilingual edition in Mexico and distributed in Spain and Latin America. She has received many awards, including three from Arts Council England and two from the Society of Authors. Her poems have been translated into eighteen languages. She has translated poems of a number of contemporary Chinese poets including Yang Lian
Yang Lian
Yang Lian is a Chinese poet associated with the Misty Poets and also with the Searching for Roots school. He was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1955 and raised in Beijing, where he attended primary school....
, Wang Xiaoni and Zhai Yongming
Zhai Yongming
Zhai Yongming is a Chinese poet from Chengdu. After being sent away for two years during the Cultural Revolution to do manual labor in the countryside, she returned to Chengdu....
. She was Poetry Editor of Poetry London from 1990-2005 and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University from 2007-9. She tutors poetry courses for Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, the Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School and the Taliesin Trust. She is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
The Australian poet Les Murray
Les Murray (poet)
Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...
has praised her work in the Times Literary Supplement, where he wrote: "No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit." Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay MBE is a Scottish poet and novelist.-Biography:Jackie Kay was born in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Jonathan C. Okafor who later became a prominent tropical plant taxonomist...
in The Observer wrote "Pascale's poems are as fresh as paint, and make you look all over again at Frida and her brilliant and tragic life." Ruth Padel
Ruth Padel
Ruth Sophia Padel is a British poet, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Zoological Society of London. She also writes non-fiction and more recently fiction, broadcasts on wildlife, poetry and literature for BBC Radio 3 and 4, and is Writer in Residence at The Environment Institute,...
, reviewing What the Water Gave Me – Poems after Frida Kahlo in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
wrote "Petit's collection is not a verse biography, but a hard-hitting, palette-knife evocation of the effect that bus crash had on Kahlo's life and work. "And this is how I started painting. / Time stretched out its spectrum / and screeched its brakes." WH Auden, in his elegy for Yeats
Yeats
W. B. Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright.Yeats may also refer to:* Yeats ,* Yeats , an impact crater on Mercury* Yeats , an Irish thoroughbred racehorse-See also:...
, tells the Irish poet: "Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry." Petit's collection, exploring the way trauma hurts an artist into creation, celebrates the rebarbative energy with which Kahlo redeemed pain and transformed it into paint."
Selected Bibliography
Icefall Climbing pamphlet (Smith Doorstop, 1994)Heart of a Deer (Enitharmon, 1998)
Tying the Song Co-editor with Mimi Khalvati
Mimi Khalvati
Mimi Khalvati is an Iranian-born British poet.-Life and career:She was born in Tehran, Iran in 1944. She grew up on the Isle of Wight and was educated in Switzerland at the University of Neuchâtel, and in London at the Drama Centre and the School of Oriental and African Studies...
(Enitharmon, 2000)
The Zoo Father (Seren, 2001)
El Padre Zoológico/The Zoo Father (El Tucan, Mexico City, 2004)
The Huntress (Seren, 2005)
The Wounded Deer: Fourteen poems after Frida Kahlo pamphlet (Smith Doorstop, 2005)
The Treekeeper's Tale (Seren, 2008)
What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, UK, 2010, Black Lawrence Press, US, 2011)
Poetry from Art at Tate Modern editor, pamphlet (Tate Publications, 2010)
Awards, Prizes and Fellowships
• 2000 'The Strait-Jackets' (fromThe Zoo Father) shortlisted for Forward Best Single Poem Prize• 2001 New London Writers' Award
• 2001 Arts Council England Writers' Award
• 2001 The Zoo Father Poetry Book Society
Poetry Book Society
The Poetry Book Society was founded by T. S. Eliot and friends in 1953. Each quarter the Society selects one recently published collection of poetry for its members. The Society also publishes the quarterly poetry journal Bulletin, and it administers the competition for the annual T. S. Eliot Prize...
Recommendation
• 2001 The Zoo Father shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize
• 2005 The Huntress shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize
• 2005 Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award
• 2006 Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award
• 2006 Society of Author's Author's Foundation Award
• 2007-9 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University
• 2010 What the Water Gave Me shortlisted for T.S. Eliot Prize
• 2011 What the Water Gave me shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year
• 2011 Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at Courtauld Institute of Art