Polly Clark
poet
Polly Clark (born 1968) is a Canadian-born British writer and poet. She is the author of Larchfield (2017), which fictionalised a youthful period in the life of poet W. H. Auden, and Tiger (2019) about a last dynasty of wild Siberian tigers. She has published four critically acclaimed volumes of poetry. She lives in Helensburgh, Scotland.
Early life and education
Clark was born in Toronto and came to the UK as a child, growing up in Cumbria, Lancashire and the Scottish Borders. She graduated with a degree in English and Philosophy from the University of Liverpool and completed a Master of Arts (MA) in English literature at Oxford Brookes University.
Career
Between 2007 and 2017 she produced the Literature Programme at Cove Park, Scotland's International Artist Residency Centre, near Helensburgh. She was poet in residence for the Southern Daily Echo and chaired and presented the author Richard Ford on an Arts Council England funded tour of theatres in south-east England in 2004. She has held other jobs to support her writing, including a period as a teacher of English in Hungary, working in publishing at Oxford University Press, and as a zookeeper at Edinburgh Zoo.
Since winning the Eric Gregory Award for young poets in 1997, she has published three collections of poetry and one pamphlet.
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