Carcanet Press - Rebecca Watts

About
Reviews
Awards

Winner, 2022 Gladstone’s Library Writers-in-Residence Award (Red Gloves)
Recipient, 2019 Hawthornden Fellowship
Finalist, 2018 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative
Shortlisted, 2017 The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry First Collection Prize (The Met Office Advises Caution)

Rebecca Watts was born in Suffolk in 1983 and currently lives in Cambridge, where she works as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and freelance writer, editor and tutor. A selection of her poetry was included in New Poetries VI (2015). Her debut collection The Met Office Advises Caution (2016) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the 2017 Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. Her second collection, Red Gloves, was published in 2020 and won a Gladstone's Library Writers-in-Residence Award.

Rebecca’s website is http://rerebeccawatts.weebly.com/.

'With The Face in the Well, Rebecca Watts advances from being a highly promising poet to a place among the finest formalists in English. Not the formalism of nostalgia or decorum, but that of a sculptor, exquisitely dauntless, vivid and alert. When the shapes make this much sense the very breath can be heard and the spaces come alive, raising into view a trembling dream-England of old songs and books, pictures and creatures, the past and the lost tapping on the shoulders of every passing moment, forming new and unforgettable visions of our time.'
Glyn Maxwell
'Watts's attention to the natural world is almost holy, ego-less. Like Alice Oswald, she can become that thing she observes, or become 'the animal in [her]' with a perspective that is some omniscient amalgam of human-and-everything-else-ness.'
Kathryn Maris
'She seems to have discovered a direct line to her speaking voice, while simultaneously maintaining the clear thought of a poet. This sets her apart. Not many can cope with these two competing sounds jabbering in their ear. If someone can do this you don't really care what they write about because they're in the room with you, speaking to you personally. "Resistance" is nowhere.'
Hugo Williams

Awards won by Rebecca Watts Winner, 2022 Gladstone's Library Writers in Residence Award (Red Gloves) Joint winner, 2019 Hawthornden Fellowship
Short-listed, 2018 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative
Short-listed, 2017 The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry First Collection Prize (The Met Office Advises Caution )

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Rebecca Watts Books by this author: The Face in the Well Red Gloves New Selected Poems (Ed.) The Met Office Advises Caution About Reviews Awards Winner, 2022 Gladstone’s Library Writers-in-Residence Award (Red Gloves) Recipient, 2019 Hawthornden Fellowship Finalist, 2018 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Shortlisted, 2017 The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry First Collection Prize (The Met Office Advises Caution) Rebecca Watts was born in Suffolk in 1983 and currently lives in Cambridge, where she works as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and freelance writer, editor and tutor. A selection of her poetry was included in New Poetries VI (2015). Her debut collection The Met Office Advises Caution (2016) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the 2017 Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. Her second collection, Red Gloves, was published in 2020 and won a Gladstone's Library Writers-in-Residence Award. Rebecca’s website is http://rerebeccawatts.weebly.com/. 'With The Face in the Well, Rebecca Watts advances from being a highly promising poet to a place among the finest formalists in English. Not the formalism of nostalgia or decorum, but that of a sculptor, exquisitely dauntless, vivid and alert. When the shapes make this much sense the very breath can be heard and the spaces come alive, raising into view a trembling dream-England of old songs and books, pictures and creatures, the past and the lost tapping on the shoulders of every passing moment, forming new and unforgettable visions of our time.' Glyn Maxwell 'Watts's attention to the natural world is almost holy, ego-less. Like Alice Oswald, she can become that thing she observes, or become 'the animal in [her]' with a perspective that is some omniscient amalgam of human-and-everything-else-ness.' Kathryn Maris 'She seems to have discovered a direct line to her speaking voice, while simultaneously maintaining the clear thought of a poet. This sets her apart. Not many can cope with these two competing sounds jabbering in their ear. If someone can do this you don't really care what they write about because they're in the room with you, speaking to you personally. "Resistance" is nowhere.' Hugo Williams Awards won by Rebecca Watts Winner, 2022 Gladstone's Library Writers in Residence Award (Red Gloves) Joint winner, 2019 Hawthornden Fellowship Short-listed, 2018 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Short-listed, 2017 The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry First Collection Prize (The Met Office Advises Caution )	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog We've Moved! read more Books of the Year read more One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more
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