Moniza Alvi, judge of the Second Light poetry competition in 2013, was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hertfordshire. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2002. Three of her collections have been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize. Moniza works as a freelance writer and tutor, tutoring mainly for the Poetry School.

Publications include:
At the Time of Partition, 2013, Bloodaxe. A PBS Choice, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize;
Homesick for the Earth versions of the poems of Jules Supervielle, 2011, Bloodaxe;
Split World Poems 1993-2008, 2008, Bloodaxe;
Europa, 2008, Bloodaxe. A PBS Choice, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize;
Carrying My Wife, a compendium collection, 2000, Bloodaxe. A PBS Recommendation;
The Country at My Shoulder, 1993, OUP. A PBS Recommendation, shortlisted for the Whitbread and T.S. Eliot poetry prizes

Moniza Alvi web-site

Anne was a regular tutor for Second Light Network for several years.

Anne was born in Belgium, brought to Britain just before the war, graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and took Irish Citizenship in 1961. With her husband Walt, she ran a smallholding in Wales. She taught creative writing in higher education, took poetry workshops and edited poetry for Scintilla. Publications: She is featured in Poetry 1900-2000, One Hundred Poets from Wales (Parthian, 2008). Timeslips, New and Selected Poems (Carcanet, 1997). Batu-Angas: Envisioning Nature with Alfred Russel Wallace (book-length sequence, illustrated) explores Wallace’s experiences in Amazonia and the Malay Archipelago (Seren, May 2008). Water to Breathe, autobiographical poems (Flarestack, October 2008).

Latest Collection: Touching Distances: Diary Poems, 2014, Cinnamon Press.

Obituary, The Independent.

UA Fanthorpe has judged the Second Light Network poetry competition

UA Fanthorpe was dispatched, with her brother, to Surrey when war broke out. She studied at Oxford, taught at Cheltenham for sixteen years, then left and became a hospital receptionist. This ‘root-and-branch’ experience pitchforked her into poetry, freelance writing, Writer-in-Residence in Lancaster (1983-5), and subsequently Northern Arts Fellow (Durham and Newcastle). She was the first woman nominated for ‘Professor of Poetry’ at Oxford. Honours awarded include a CBE and The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Her work is published in thirteen volumes and four audio cassettes, and broadcast on radio and TV. Her New & Collected Poems (508 pp) was published posthumously in 2010.

Recent Publications:
New & Collected Poems, Enitharmon Press, 2010
with RV Bailey, From Me to You: Love Poems, Peterloo Poets & Enitharmon, 2007
Homing In: Local Poems, Cyder Press, University of Gloucestershire, 2006
Collected Poems, Peterloo Poets, 2005
Queueing for the Sun, Peterloo Poets, 2003
Christmas Poems, Peterloo Poets & Enitharmon, 2002

web-page at Peterloo Poets

Kate has tutored for Second Light Network on several occasions, at Launde Abbey and other London venues. She also serves on the Committee.

Kate Foley’s 4th collection The Silver Rembrandt is due from Shoestring Press in 2008. Her first, Soft Engineering, was shortlisted for Aldeburgh Festival’s best first collection prize. She is widely published and has read in many major London poetry venues. Prize-winnings include 1st and 2nd, SLN. She is a poetry editor for the international magazine Versal. As a member of the Amsterdam-based literary collective wordsinhere , she leads workshops in Amsterdam and Utrecht). She is currently a juror for the David Reid Poetry Translation Prize.

Publications:
The Silver Rembrandt, Shoestring Press, 2008
Laughter from the Hive, Shoestring Press, 2004
Night and Other Animals, pamphlet, Green Lantern Press, 2002
A Year Without Apricots, Blackwater Press, 1999
Soft Engineering, OnlyWomen Press, 1994

web-pages on poetry p f.
 
e-mail

Wendy serves on the Second Light Network committee.

Wendy French works in a freelance capacity promoting writing in different healthcare settings. She works mainly with Age Concern, Dyscover (an organisation dedicated to the rehabilitation of people who suffer from dysphasia) and with young people experiencing mental health problems. She will be running a workshop at the Torbay Poetry Festival in October 2008. For the past three years Wendy has been a judge for the schools’ competition which is held in Banstead, Surrey. Wendy has co-edited three anthologies of young people’s poetry from Guys’ Hospital School and the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital School.

Publications:
Splintering the Dark, Rockingham Press;
Sky over Bedlam, tall-lighthouse;
We Have a little Sister and She Hath No Breasts, tall-lighthouse

Address:
4 Myton Road
West Dulwich
London
SE21 8EB
 
web-pages on poetry p f
 
e-mail

Katherine has tutored for Second Light Network on several occasions and was the judge of the 2012 Second Light poetry competition. She also serves on the Committee.

My first book, Passengers to the City was shortlisted for Adelaide Festival’s 1986 National Poetry Awards. With 4th collection, Circus-Apprentice, chosen as Poetry Kit ‘Book of the Month’ (March, 2007), and widely reviewed, I reflect on poetry – writing or tutoring, having become my way of life... Since 1990, I’ve led workshops for Open College of the Arts, various festivals viz. Launde, Haringey, and regular events – the Poetry Society, Jacksons Lane, Torriano. Poetry is a learning-curve for students and tutors – Frost’s ‘fresh look and a fresh listen’. One doesn’t really really teach poetry; one teaches the craft, its diversity.

Publications:
Carnival Edge: New & Selected Poems, Arc Publications, 2010, ISBN 978-1-906570-42-2. pbk £11.99;
Circus Apprentice, Arc Publications, 2006, ISBN No. 1-904614-02-7. £8.99;
After Kandinsky, Vagabond Press (Rare Objects Series), 2005, (details from Katherine);
Tigers on the Silk Road, Arc Publications, 2000, ISBN No. 1 900072 47 5. £6.95;
Fish-Rings on Water, Forest Books, 1989, ISBN No. 0 948259 75 2. £6.95 incl p&p(UK);
Passengers to the City, Hale & Iremonger, 1985, Sydney, 1985, ISBN No. 0 86806 212 x. Hardback. £9.00 incl p&p(UK);
more on Katherine’s web-site... and poetry p f Poem Cards.

Address:
49 Myddleton Road
Wood Green
London
N22 8LZ
 
tel: Tel: 020 8881 1418
 
web-site
 
e-mail

Jackie Kay, judge of the Second Light poetry competition in 2014, was born and brought up in Scotland. The Adoption Papers (Bloodaxe) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. Fiere, her most recent collection of poems, was shortlisted for the Costa award. Her novel Trumpet won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. Red Dust Road (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, and the London Book Award. It was shortlisted for the JR Ackerley prize. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her book of stories Wish I Was Here won the Decibel British Book Award.
 
She also writes for children and her book Red Cherry Red (Bloomsbury) won the CLYPE award. She has written extensively for stage and television. Her most recent plays Manchester Lines (produced by Manchester Library Theatre) and The New Maw Broon Monologues (produced by Glasgay) were a great success. Her most recent book is a collection of stories, Reality, Reality. She is currently working on her new novel, Bystander. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Jackie Kay at the Scottish Poetry Library

Mimi has been a regular tutor for Second Light Network for several years.

Mimi Khalvati has published eight poetry collections with Carcanet Press, including The Meanest Flower, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2007, The Weather Wheel, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011, a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. She was poet in residence at the Royal Mail and has held fellowships with the Royal Literary Fund at City University and at the International Writing Program in Iowa. She is also the founder of The Poetry School. Her awards include a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors, a major Arts Council Writer’s Award and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of The English Society.

Publications:
Very Selected Poems, 2017, pamphlet collection from Smith|Doorstop and from Carcanet:

The Weather Wheel, 2014
Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011, 2011
The Meanest Flower, 2007
The Chine, 2002
Mimi Khalvati: Selected Poems, 2000
Entries on Light, 1997
Mirrorwork, 1995
In White Ink, 1991

Mimi Khalvati website     and at poetry p f
 
e-mail

 
(photo by James Richardson)

Hannah Lowe lives in London. Her books include Chick (2013, Bloodaxe), shortlisted for the Forward, Aldeburgh Best First Collection Prizes and Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize; R x (sine wave peak, 2013); Ormonde (Hercules Editions, 2014) and her family memoir Long Time No See, which featured as Radio 4’s Book of the Week. In September 2014, she was named as one of 20 Next Generation poets.

Publications:
Ormonde, Hercules Editions, 2014
Chick, Bloodaxe, 2013
R x, sine wave peak, 2013

Hannah Lowe website
 
e-mail (via Second Light)

Ruth served on the Second Light Network committee for several years.

Ruth O’Callaghan, a Hawthornden fellow, has been translated into six languages and has read extensively in Asia, Europe and the USA. In 2010 she was awarded a gold medal for her poetry. She is a competition adjudicator, interviewer, reviewer, editor, workshop leader and mentor. Her sixth collection An Unfinished Sufficiency is due to be published in 2015. A seventh collection and a book of interviews with famous women poets are in progress. She runs 2 regular (Camden/Lumen) and other events where the famous and unknown read/are published together.

Publications:
The Silence Unheard, collection, Shoestring Press, 2013
Another Morning of Quiet Pleasures, collection, Soaring Penguin Press, 2013
Goater’s Alley, collection, Shoestring Press, 2010
A Lope of Time, collection, Shoestring Press, 2009
Where Acid Has Etched, collection, bluechrome, 2007

web-pages on poetry p f
 
e-mail

Pascale has tutored at Second Light events on several occasions.

Pascale Petit’s collections, The Huntress and The Zoo Father, won several credits (see below). She has two further books forthcoming from Seren. One of the Next Generation Poets (PBS & Arts Council, 2004), she has won numerous awards (four from ACE) and was shortlisted for a Forward Prize. Pascale co-edited the first Poetry School anthology and was poetry editor of Poetry London for fifteen years. She is Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University, a core course tutor for Oxford University (Master of Studies, Creative Writing), and teaches for Tate Modern, the Poetry School, the Arvon Foundation and Taliesin Trust.

Publications:
The Treekeeper’s Tale, Seren, (October 2008)
The Thorn Necklace: Forty poems after Frida Kahlo, illustrated, Seren, (2009)
The Huntress, 2005: Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize; book of the year, Times Literary Supplement;
The Zoo Father, 2001: Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize; book of the year, Times Literary Supplement; Poetry Book Society Recommendation;
The Wounded Deer: Fourteen poems after Frida Kahlo, award-winning pamphlet, Smith/Doorstop Books, 2005

web-site
 
e-mail

Caroline Price is a violinist and teacher living in Framlingham, Suffolk. She has published short stories and four collections of poetry, of which the most recent is Picnic on the rocks, with frog (Shoestring Press 2017). Her poetry has won many prizes and her short fiction has been short-listed in recent years for the Asham, London Magazine and Bridport Awards; in 2015 she was runner-up for the Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon award for a short story. She has undertaken residencies and workshops in England and France and has worked as a translator for literary festivals in Brussels and Rotterdam. She is a tutor for Second Light and the Poetry School.

Publications (poetry):
Picnic on the rocks, with frog, Shoestring Press, 2017
Wishbone, Shoestring Press, 2008
Pictures Against Skin, Rockingham Press, 1994
Thinking of the Bull Dancers, Littlewood Press, 1987
 
co-editor with Myra Schneider of anthology, Four Caves of the Heart, Second Light Publications, 2004

Caroline Price at poetry p f
 
e-mail (via Second Light)

Anne served on the Second Light Network committee for several years up to 2009.

Anne Ryland’s first collection of poetry, Autumnologist, (Arrowhead Press, 2006) was shortlisted for The Forward Prize for Best First Collection (2007). Her poems are widely published in magazines and anthologies, and she has read at venues in London, York, Newcastle and the Scottish Borders. She lives in Berwick-upon-Tweed, where she is an adult education tutor and facilitator of writing workshops. Last year, as part of a New Writing North project, she was writer in residence at a home for the elderly in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, an experience so rewarding that she is now developing her work with other community groups.

Publications:
Autumnologist, Arrowhead Press, 2006

e-mail (via SLN)

Sibyl served on the Second Light Network committee during 2007/8.

I came to writing poetry by a sideways route, shortly before I was 30. An illness – now long gone – meant that I couldn’t concentrate well enough to fulfil my aim of writing a novel. So I thought I’d try a few poems in the meantime. Nearly 20 years on I’m still hooked on poetry. I’ve taught creative writing for the Open College of the Arts, the Lifelong Learning department of Birmingham University and am now a freelance reader for The Literary Consultancy. For several years I also organised literature events and courses at an arts centre.

Publications:
Nothing Personal, (Iron Press, 1995)
I Could Become That Woman, (Five Leaves, 2003)

e-mail

Carole has judged the poetry competition and tutored for Second Light Network.

Carole Satyamurti, poet, tutor (Poetry School), and sociologist, teaches at the Tavistock Clinic, where her principal academic interest is in the relevance of psychoanalytic ideas to an understanding of the autobiographical stories people tell. She contributed to, and co-edited, with Hamish Canham, a collection of essays on connections between poetry and psychoanalysis, Acquainted with the Night: psychoanalysis and the poetic imagination (Karnac, 2003). She won the National Poetry Competition in 1986. She has published three volumes of poetry with Oxford University Press (two PBS recommendations). Her latest collection, Stitching the Dark: New and Selected Poems, appeared from Bloodaxe in 2005.

Publications:
Mahabharata: a modern re-telling, W W Norton, (hbk 2015; pbk 2016)
Countdown, Bloodaxe, 2011
Stitching the Dark, Bloodaxe, 2005
Love and Variations, Bloodaxe, 2000
Striking the Distance, Changing the Subject & Broken Moon, OUP, 1994 / 1990 / 1987

web-site on poetry p f

Maggie served on the Second Light Network committee for several years up until 2008.

Maggie Sawkins lives in Southsea with her husband, daughter and a variety of animals. She studied English with Art at degree level and gained an MA with distinction in creative writing. For the past thirteen years she has worked at South Downs College where she now teaches students with learning difficulties. In 2003 she helped to set up Tongues & Grooves, the popular poetry and music club on the seafront. She has read at The Troubadour as one of their new summer voices, as well as at The Poetry Café and other places including the 2006 Torbay Poetry Festival.

Publications:
The Zig Zag Woman, Two Ravens Press, 2007
Charcot’s Pet, Flarestack, 2002
Four Caves of the Heart, Second Light Publications, 2004

web-site on poetry p f
 
e-mail

Myra has tutored and judged for Second Light Network and, as Consultant, takes part in Committee activities.

She has several poetry collections published as well as books (some co-written) about personal writing. She has won first prize in the Scintilla competition (long poems section) three times – most recently in 2007. Also in 2007 her poem, Goulash, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for the best single poem of the year. She has been a poetry tutor since 1988 and worked for The Poetry School since its inception. She tutors one-off poetry workshops and courses all over the country.

Publications:
Siege and Symphony, poetry, Second Light Publications, 2021
Lifting the Sky, poetry, Ward Wood Publishing, 2018
Persephone in Finsbury Park, poetry pamphlet, Second Light Publications, 2016
The Door to Colour, poetry, Enitharmon, 2014
What Women Want, poetry, Second Light Publications, 2012
Circling the Core, poetry, Enitharmon, Autumn 2008
Becoming, a narrative poem, Second Light Publications, 2007
Multiplying the Moon, poetry, Enitharmon, 2004
… more on Myra’s web-site.

Address:
130 Morton Way
Southgate
London
N14 7AL
 
Myra Schneider website
 
See Maitreyabandhu 2012 interview with Myra (40 minutes): Poetry East Interview
 
and Basil Clarke interview with Myra on her collection Siege and Symphony: Feb 2022, Poetry in Palmers Green
 
e-mail

As well as being a Second Light tutor, Penelope judged the 2006 Second Light Poetry Competition.

Penelope Shuttle is a Hawthornden Fellow, a tutor for The Poetry School, the Arvon Foundation, and Second Light Network, and has judged many competitions, most recently the 2008 National Poetry Competition. She has read at numerous festivals. Her work can be heard on the Poetry Archive web-site and is available on cd. Her eighth collection, Redgrove’s Wife, was short-listed for the Forward Prize and the T S Eliot Award. In October 2007 she took part in the Cornwall Poets reading tour in North America. Her new collection, The Repose of Baghdad, is in preparation.

Recent Publications:
Adventures with my Horse, new editon 2007, Poetry Book Society ‘Back in Print’ series, ISBN 978-0-9511023-6-7. £9.99
Redgrove’s Wife, 2006, Bloodaxe Books, ISBN 1-85224-734-7. £8.95
A Leaf Out of His Book, 1999, Oxford Poets/Carcanet, ISBN 1-903039-00-2. £8.95
and, from Oxford University Press:
   Selected Poems 1980-1996, 1998, ISBN 0-19-288076-4.
   Building a City for Jamie, 1996, ISBN 0-19-28282517-8. and others...

web-site on poetry p f.
 
Penelope Shuttle website
 
e-mail

Hylda served on the Second Light Network committee for many years.

Hylda wrote songs and poetry and occasionally ‘got stuck in and wrote a novel’. The published one is Inspecting the Island, based on the school she had the ‘great good fortune to attend’ – A S Neill’s free school, Summerhill. Hylda co-ran the popular Fourth Friday poetry and music event at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden and, prior to that, Poetry & Jazz) at the same venue. Her narrative poetry sequence, Reaching Peckham, was set to music, performed at Dulwich Festival and on the London fringe and published in pamphlet & tape form. Her first poetry collection is Sayling the Babel (includes the odd song), published by Hearing Eye in 2007.

Publications:
Sayling the Babel, poetry, Hearing Eye, 2007;
Inspecting the Island, novel, LibEd, 2004, avail from Seven Ply Yarns, c/o 148 Crystal Palace Road, London SE22 9EP. £9.00 incl p&p;
Reaching Peckham, a narrative poem, 1996

Hylda at poetry p f
 

 
enquiry via Second Light

Pauline has tutored and read for Second Light Network.

Pauline Stainer has published six collections of poetry with Bloodaxe Books. Her last book, The Lady and the Hare, New and Selected Poems, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. A new collection, Crossing the Snowline, also from Bloodaxe, has a publication date of October 2008. After living in Orkney for several years, she is now based in Suffolk.

More recent publications, Bloodaxe Books:
Crossing the Snowline, Oct 2008
The Lady and the Hare, 2003
Parable Island, 1999
The Wound-Dresser’s Dream, 1996
The Ice-Pilot Speaks, 1994

Crossing the Snowline at Bloodaxe Books

Anne serves on the committee and is a part-time administrator for Second Light. She has co-edited several Issues of ARTEMISpoetry and runs the SecondLightLive website.

Anne is the founder of poetry p f, the Poetry Society’s Kent North West Stanza rep, a Past-President of Shortlands Poetry Circle and a freelance provider of services to poets & poetry organisations. She has an MA (Dist. Creative Writing) from Sheffield Hallam University and is one of their Ten Hallam Poets (anthology, 2005, Mews Press). She won the Bridport Prize in 2008, the Southport Prize in 2009, the Silver Wyvern (Poetry on the Lake, Italy) in 2014. She has two full collections: The Janus Hour, (Oversteps Books, 2010), and The Last Parent, Second Light Publications, 2019. Two small bi-lingual collections have been published in Bucharest.

Publications:
The Last Parent, Second Light Publications, 2019
Let It Come to Us All, Integral (print) & Contemporary Literature Press (illustrated, online), 2017
Only Here Till Friday, Bibliotheca Universalis, Eng/Rom, 2015 & Eng/Sp, 2016
The Janus Hour, Oversteps Books, 2010
Ten Hallam Poets, anthology, Mews Press, 2005

Address:
20 Clovelly Way
Orpington
Kent
BR6 0WD
 
Tel: 01689 811394
 
web-pages at poetry p f Anne Stewart website
 
e-mail

Dilys is the founder and organiser of Second Light Network and its publishing imprint, Second Light Publications.

Dilys started writing poetry again after retiring from the Civil Service, where her jobs included being secretary of the Women’s National Commission. She shortly after founded Second Light, focussed on the needs of women reconnecting with writing after forty. Second Light Network developed into a support group and, on a small scale (though reviews suggest significant), publisher of women’s poetry. Together with her own writing (Antarctica, 2008; Women Come to a Death, Katabasis, 1997), Dilys has been the joint editor (mainly with Myra Schneider) of 7 women’s poetry anthologies.

Publications:
Antarctica, 2008, Greendale Press (All proceeds to Second Light Network funds), £5.95, direct from Dilys
Women Come to a Death, 1997, Katabasis.

Address:
3 Springfield Close
East Preston
West Sussex
BN16 2SZ
 
e-mail [NOTE: tiscali address is redundant. Please amend your record to btinternet address]