{"id":2,"date":"2026-03-28T07:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T07:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/wp1\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-03-30T16:52:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:52:06","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About Jane Draycott"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

[more web pages to come soon…]<\/em><\/p>\r\n

Jane Draycott is a UK-based poet with a particular interest in audio and collaborative work. Her latest collection is <\/span><\/span><\/span>The Kingdom <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>(<\/span><\/span><\/span>Carcanet Press<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>), published autumn 2022. Previous collections include <\/span><\/span><\/span>The Occupant <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>(<\/span><\/span><\/span>Carcanet<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>2016, <\/span><\/span><\/span>Poetry Book Society<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>recommendation) and <\/span><\/span><\/span>Over <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>(<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>Carcanet<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>), shortlisted for the 2009 T S Eliot Prize.

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Nominated three times for the Forward Prize for Poetry, her first two full collections <\/span><\/span><\/span>Prince Rupert’s Drop <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>(<\/span><\/span><\/span>Carcanet<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>) and <\/span><\/span><\/span>The Night Tree <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>(<\/span><\/span><\/span>Carcanet<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>\/Oxford<\/span><\/span><\/span>Poets<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>) were both Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Her translation of the 14th century dream-vision <\/span><\/span><\/span>Pearl <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>(<\/span><\/span><\/span>Carcanet<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>2011), is a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation and was a Stephen Spender Prize-winner. Her collection of new translations <\/span><\/span><\/span>Storms Under the Skin<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: Selected Poems (1927-1954)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0of Henri Michaux (a PBS Recommendation) was published in 2017 by Two Rivers Press. She is a recipient of a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors (2023) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n

Jane’s audio work with Elizabeth James has won several awards including BBC Radio 3 Poem-for-Radio and a London Sound Art Award. \u00a0In association with the British Film Institute she was a contributor to the <\/span><\/span><\/span>Essentially British <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>Mediatheque project (2007) and Simon Barraclough’s <\/span><\/span><\/span>Psycho Poetica <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>(2010) and <\/span><\/span><\/span>Poets on Pasolini: A New Decameron <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>(2013). Other collaborative work includes, from <\/span><\/span><\/span>Two Rivers Press,<\/span><\/span><\/span> Christina the Astonishing <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>(with Peter Hay and Lesley Saunders, <\/span><\/span><\/span>new edition<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>2022) and <\/span><\/span><\/span>Tideway,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>(<\/span><\/span><\/span>new edition 2022<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>) a sequence of poems about London’s working river (with paintings by Peter Hay) written while poet-in-residence at the <\/span><\/span><\/span>River & Rowing Museum<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n

Nominated as one of the Poetry Book Society’s <\/span><\/span><\/span>Next Generation<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>poets in 2004, she is Senior Associate Tutor on <\/span><\/span><\/span>Oxford University’s MSt in Creative Writing<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>and an Associate Fellow of the <\/span><\/span><\/span>Royal Literary Fund<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span>working in schools and on social sector projects. Her poem ‘<\/span><\/span><\/span>Italy to Lord<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>‘ was a prize-winner in the <\/span><\/span><\/span>2012 National Poetry Competition, <\/span><\/span><\/span>and in summer 2013 she was Writer in Residence in Amsterdam hosted by the Dutch Foundation for Literature. She was winner of the 2014 Hippocrates International Prize for Poetry and Medicine.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n

… a poet of deep intelligence and subtlety, taking us as she does on poetic journeys towards what are simultaneously mysterious and clear-eyed ways of being in the world. There is something tilting and strange about her work, that offers us lyric as a moment of brilliant arrest and intensity<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>
Deryn Rees-Jones, SoA Cholmondeley Awards<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n

I’ve waited some time to read something this intelligent, this sensuous and this crystalline. In fact ‘The Night Tree’ is the finest collection I’ve read for ages.
<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>David Morley, <\/span><\/span><\/span>The Guardian<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\r\n

T<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>hose who enjoyed Jane Draycott’s ‘Tideway’ poems…will know how well she evokes the otherness of the underwater river-world… and it is in this sense that the word ‘quiet’ should be applied to the chords and modulations of Draycott’s eerie and beautiful poems. She listens, and therefore so do we.
<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>Sean O’Brien,<\/span><\/span><\/span> The Guardian<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\r\n

Jane Draycott’s fresh version of this anonymous masterpiece [Pearl] is the best available. The glamour, even glitz, of its view of paradise across the river of death dazzles as never before in modern English.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>Boyd Tonkin<\/span><\/span><\/span>, The Independent<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\r\n

The language [of ‘Pearl’] is marvellously modulated yet stirringly wild. Draycott has carried over into our tamer, tired world a strong, strange sense of how original, gorgeous and natural this old poem can be.
<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>David Morley<\/span><\/span><\/span>, Poetry Review<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[more web pages to come soon…] Jane Draycott is a UK-based poet with a particular interest in audio and collaborative work. Her latest collection is The Kingdom (Carcanet Press ), published autumn 2022. Previous collections include The Occupant (Carcanet 2016, Poetry Book Society recommendation) and Over (Carcanet ), shortlisted for the 2009 T S Eliot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janedraycott.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}