presenting at Tongues & Grooves, Portsmouth, Romanian UK Tour, 2009
Anne Stewart is a poet and provider of service to poets and poetry organisations. She has judged several poetry competitions, run various workshops including day-workshops on “Form and Creativity” and, as part of Poetry on the Lake festivals organised by Gabriel Griffin in Orta San Giulio, short writing workshops with Italian students. She has led poetry p f delegations on working visits to Universites in Munich and Bucharest.
Her poetry has won or been placed in several poetry competitions, including winning (and shortlistings in) the Bridport Prize, the Silver Wyvern (Poetry on the Lake, Italy) and the Southport Poetry Prize, and a long-listing (top 130) in the National Poetry Competition. In 2014, she was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. Her work has been widely published in poetry magazines and anthologies (so far, in at least one anthology in every year since 2005). Her first collection, The Janus Hour was published by Oversteps Books in 2010 and her second full UK collection, The Last Parent by Second Light Publications (2019). Order Form or buy online from poetry p f. See Second Light Books for Book Club offer (6 copies for £40 + feedback).
3 small bilingual collections are published in Bucharest: any minute now / î orice clipă (Eikon, 2023, 19 poems in Eng & Rom, trans. Prof. Dr. Lidia Vianu), Let It Come to Us All / Să vină pentru noi toţi, (Integral, 2017, 17 poems in Eng & Rom, trans. Prof. Dr. Lidia Viana; also illustrated online version, Contemporary Literature Press), Only Here till Friday / Doar de aici până vineri / Solo aqui hasta viernes (Bibliotheca Universalis/Editura PIM, 25 poems, 2015 Eng & Rom, trans. Mădălina Bănucu, Alexandra-Diana Mircea, Izabela-Elvira Vaţe; in 2016 Eng & Sp, trans. Ana-Maria Voicu & Aurelia Ionela Voicu).
More about Anne Read some poems
More on collections More on prizes/awards
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9th June 2024:
Having had little time for writing this year (2024), I was able to do quite a bit of readdressing hasty drafts and writing new poems while at Holland House with the ‘Le Moulin’ group now meeting there annually, and I’m looking forward to being back there again in August with Second Light – always inspirational…
I’m still President of the Shortlands Poetry Circle and delighted that our Summer Celebration this year (25th June, Ripley Arts Centre, Sundridge Avenue, Bromley) features Guest Poets Julian Bishop and Dilys Wood (see Shortlands Poetry Circle programme here – tickets £10 including our much-admired buffet.
November 2023 saw my 3rd dual-language collection published by Eikon in Bucharest. Translated by, and with a Foreword by, Prof. Dr. Lidia Vianu, the book, any minute now / în orice clipă has 19 poems in Eng & Rom. It was reviewed by Alison Brackenbury in ARTEMISpoetry Issue 32. See more, and links to poems, at publications page
The poetry p f / poetry PRo translation programme continues, with students of the University of Bucharest translating poems by poetry p f members for publication in Romanian literary magazines. I’ve also been working with Lidia Vianu as Adviser on several of her own projects: trans. of the anthologies and small collections arising from her poetry competitions for Romanian poets, her own personal collections, and her volumes of stories for students learning English grammar.
The Kent North West Stanza group (Poetry Society) recommenced meetings during 2023 and these now take place on 3rd Wednesdays from 7:30 to 9:30p.m. at The Cricketers, 93 Chislehurst Road, Orpington, BR6 0DQ. The 2024 remaining dates are 19th June, 17th July, 18th September, 16th October (NPD celebration reading) and 20th November. We’re only a handful, but welcome visitors and new regulars so I’d be very happy to hear from you if you’d like to join us. See Contact.
I was Poetry Editor for ARTEMISpoetry Issue 32 (May 2024) and had work featured in Issues 30 and 31 (May and November 2023). Joy Howard’s latest anthology, Two Ravens – Explorations of mind and memory is published this year under her Grey Hen Press imprint – more (& more books) here. This is another major anthology (279pp), featuring many established women poets, 128 in all. Joy Howard is an excellent editor, and, as such, I’m very pleased to have a poem included in it. Poems translated by Romanian students have appeared in Romanian literary magazines, Autograf, Cafeneaua Literară, Constelaţii diamantine and Vatra. Other poems have been published in the UK in Acumen, The Frogmore Papers, Poet of the Year 2023 (anthology, Canterbury Festival), HQ Quarterly and at Peter Ualrig Kennedy’s website for the Poery Wivenhoe Collective.
The haiku published in HQ Quarterly were as a result of being Shortlisted in the Poetry on the Lake (Italy) poetry competition. While at the festival (September 2023), I was presented with the newly-created Bronze Wyvern Award, for services to poetry, Alessi bowl and plaque make a lovely companion for the Silver Wyvern (bowl and plaque) already in pride of place from winning the 2014 poetry competition. I’m looking forward to attending the festival again this year.
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2021 / 2022 highlights:
Published in several anthologies:
World Poetic and Artistic Anthology (2022, Bibliotecha Universalis/Editura Pim), featuring 27 poets from 11 countries, each poet represented by a handful of poems in their original written language.
Locked Down (2021, Poetry Space, ed. Susan Jane Sims)
Poems for the Year 2020 (2021, Shoestring Press, ed. Merryn Williams)
Lovely, Dark and Deep – poems about woods (2021, Grey Hen Press ‘Landscape’ series, ed. Joy Howard)
Earth Days Numbered – 20 poems for the planet (2021, Grey Hen Press ‘Climate Change’ duo, ed. Joy Howard)
The Enfield Poets First Anthology (2021, Chela Publishing, eds. Julian Bishop, Mary Duggan, Anthony Fisher; thank you to Enfield Poets for welcoming me as an online member of the group)
Haunted (2021, Poetry on the Lake, ed./selector D M Thomas, Gabriel Griffin). The poem included was longlisted in the ‘Haunted – uncomfortable reading’ poetry and short story competition.
and The Shortlands Poetry Circle’s Writers Group latest anthology, the rainbow comes and goes, published in celebration of the Circle’s 10th anniversary of their Centenary.
Several shortlistings and commendations, including all three of the poems submitted to the Bridport Prize making it into the “2nd round, top 12%” of entries, shortlisting in The Frogmore Poetry Prize (poem published in The Frogmore Papers) and poems/images selected and published in ARTEMISpoetry Issues 26 to 29, and two postcard poems were published by Enfield Poets (Chela Publishing).
poetry p f / poetry PRo the MTTLC MA Programme at the University of Bucharest – translations to and from English bustled their way to and fro: anthologies, a series of online Masterclasses by UK poets for 1st and 2nd year students at the University of Bucharest. Student Alina Hodorogea is working on a book’s-worth of my poems and short stories for her MA.
Second Light’s Spring and Autumn festivals have continued online and the annual Residential returned to its now-spiritual home, Holland House in Cropthorne.
Photo by Philippa Lawrence, taken when she and Anne were working on Philippa’s pamphlet collection, From Memory’s Wardrobe. Speaking nicely to misbehaving machines works more often than you might think! Or is it the ‘laying on of hands’?
to buy From Memory’s Wardrobe: poetry p f shop online (and type ‘Wardrobe’ into the filter box)
Anne Stewart, 20 Clovelly Way, Orpington, Kent, BR6 0WD. UK.
Tel: +44(0) 1689 811394 Mobile: +44(0) 7850 537489 Skype: annestewart.poetrypf
e-mail Anne