Clare Pollard - ProfilesArchive

About Me

I'm a poet with three collections out with Bloodaxe - 'The Heavy-Petting Zoo', 'Bedtime' and my latest, 'Look, Clare, Look!' which is about backpacking around the world. I've also written a play, 'The Weather' - about a shopoholic, the end of the world and a poltergeist - which was on at the Royal Court. I teach poetry at the City Lit.I'm married to my muse, Richard, and live in East London.

My Interests

Throwing parties, going to launch parties and eating all the canapes, wine (espec. free wine), art galleries, films (espec. rom-coms), sundays, buying cheap CDs at Fopp, travelling, tarot reading.

I'd like to meet:

Other young poets and playwrights, who are interested in doing new, and risky, and exciting work - I've always secretly dreamed of being part of a movement. Readers. Patrons.

Music:

Gruff Rhys, Joni Mitchell, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Buckley, Kate Bush, The Rolling Stones, Fairport Convention, Johnny Cash, The Pixies, The Smiths, Nick Cave, The Raconteurs, PJ Harvey, David Bowie, Regina Spektor

Movies:

Groundhog Day, Fight Club, Bringing up Baby, Annie Hall, Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet, Edward Scissorhands...

Television:

Mad Men

Books:

POETS: Donne, Sexton, Berryman, Plath, Coleridge, Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, Frank O'Hara, Larkin, Auden, Pound... BOOKS: The Quiet American, Lolita, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Lunar Park, White Noise.

Heroes:

Shakespeare, Joan Didion, Anne Sexton, Dorothy Parker, Diane Arbus, Hannah Arendt

My Blog

Poetry International

I have seven new poems up in the February edition of Poetry International, guest-edited by Helen Mort, including a couple of ballads - a form I've been obsessed with lately - and ...
Posted by Clare Pollard on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:41:00 PST

New Poem

Just thought I'd put up the link for a new poem I've written for the Tate, 'The Master-Stroke'. It's a response to a painting by Richard Dadd - an astonishing 19th Century artist who s...
Posted by Clare Pollard on Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:34:00 PST

My Male Muse - Radio 4 Doc

The documentary I've been working on all Spring - 'My Male Muse' - is finally being aired on the 10th of July, at 11.30 on Radio 4. Hope you'll tune in. It's a collaboration wi...
Posted by Clare Pollard on Fri, 08 Jun 2007 10:03:00 PST

Doctor's diagnosis: I am a 'bad girl'

For any myspace browsers who are curious as to what my work's like, there's a poem of mine up at: http://www.thepoem.co.uk/limelight/pollard.htm the british Council's website has also j...
Posted by Clare Pollard on Thu, 07 Sep 2006 02:06:00 PST

Reel to Real

Hi everyone, just to say I've got a short play on as part of an event run by Practicum Theatre in a couple of weeks. The night's called 'Reel to Real' and is inspired by movies, so I've written ...
Posted by Clare Pollard on Fri, 01 Sep 2006 09:38:00 PST