About U. A. Fanthorpe
U. A. Fanthorpe was an English poet born in Kent in 1929. She was the first woman to be nominated for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry and Arts Council Writing Fellow at St Martin's College, Lancaster (1983 - 85), and Northern Arts Literary Fellow at the universities of Newcastle and Durham (1987 - 88). She became Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1988. In 1989 she became a full-time writer, and often gave readings of her work, mostly in the UK and occasionally abroad. Many of her poems are for two voices, and in her readings the other voice was taken by R. V. Bailey.U. A. Fanthorpe was also shortlisted for the 1996 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) for Safe as Houses, and was a leading contender for the post of Poet Laureate in 1999. Consequences (2000), was a Poetry Book Society recommendation, and Christmas Poems (2002), brings together a collection of poems that she sent out to friends as Christmas cards from 1974 onwards. Her last collection was Queuing for the Sun (2003), and her Collected Poems was published in 2004. Homing In: Selected Local Poems (2006), celebrates her home county of Gloucestershire. In 2001 U. A. Fanthorpe was made CBE for services to poetry. She was also awarded the 2003 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
U. A Fanthorpe died in April 2009.
Browse all poems and texts published on U. A. Fanthorpe
