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The page of Polley , Jacob, English biography

Image of Polley , Jacob
Polley , Jacob
(1975–)
 

Biography

Jacob Polley was born in Carlisle in 1975. He was poet-in-residence at the Wordsworth Trust in 2002, the same year he won an Eric Gregory Award. During this time, he completed his first collection of poems, The Brink (2003), a Poetry Book Society Choice that was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Critics were swift to praise its subtle lines and inventive images; what the Guardian described as "a certain cutback virtue" pervading the poems, indication of Polley’s "belief in a restrained language and the transforming possibilities of description and metaphor." Nowhere is this more apparent than in the startling opener to this Archive recording, 'Smoke'. Recalling his father's stove in the family home, iron doors "like a black bank safe's", the poet imagines his unborn self, "wondering if I too / had hung in darkness". As throughout Polley's reading, the poem's rich sibilance and vowel sounds, delivered in his distinctive Cumbrian accent, vividly bring its scenes to life.

source: https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/jacob-polley

(Editor of this page: Répás Norbert)

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