lode

Gillian Allnutt was born in London but spent half her childhood in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1988 she returned to live in the North East. Before that, she read Philosophy and English at Cambridge, and then spent the next 17 years living mostly in London. From 1983 to 1988 she was poetry editor of City Limits magazine. Her collections Nantucket and the Angel and Lintel were both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Poems from these collections are included in her Bloodaxe retrospective How the Bicycle Shone: New & Selected Poems (2007), which draws on six published books plus a new collection, Wolf Light, and was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Her most recent collections, both from Bloodaxe, are indwelling (2013) and wake (2018), followed by lode (2025). She has also published Berthing: A Poetry Workbook (NEC/Virago, 1991), and was co-editor of The New British Poetry (Paladin, 1988). From 2001 to 2003 she held a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at Newcastle and Leeds Universities. She won the Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award in 2005 and received a Cholmondeley Award in 2010. Since 1983 she has taught creative writing in a variety of contexts, mainly in adult education and as a writer in schools. In 2009/10 she held a writing residency with The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (now Freedom From Torture) in the North East, working with asylum seekers in Newcastle and Stockton. In 2013/14 she taught creative writing to undergraduates on the Poetry and Poetics course in the English Department of Durham University. She lives in County Durham. Gillian Allnutt was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2016. The Medal is awarded for excellence in poetry, and was presented to Gillian Allnutt by HM Queen Elizabeth in February 2017.

• POSTWAR12 Audience13 Corbridge14 refugee born London 194915 Dunstanburgh16 a place beyond belief17 Berthe18 Crabapple moon19 Poem for John Clinging20 Pink Jenkins21 Private Passion22 Flame-thrower24 My father, mislaid25 note LOCKDOWN28 Golden Saxifrage29 On having to leave York University without the clock30 Azuma Meditation31 The Walk (allowed)32 If these days should be final33 My Garden in Esh Winning34 Lockdown35 The way she remembered it37 To be honest38 At 7139 Marney’s Boots40 Mask EARTH-HOARD42 ‘Wouldst thou witten thy Lord’s meaning in this thing?’43 At Ware44 Beechwood45 of the trees in the wood by the old pit line46 summertime47 Germander Speedwell Veronica chamaedrys (Linn.)48 Do the birds worry?49 Solitude50 The Song of Arachnid51 My hands, yes52 I love this poor earth for I have known no other53 Trist54 dark night of the soul55 Footnote56 Afternoon in the Garden57 Found Poem58 Flâneur59 for only then can60 Sea Change 63 Notes 71 Roughage

Her writing roams across centuries, very different histories and lives, and draws together, without excuse or explanation, moments which link across country, class, culture and time… Her poems progress over the years to a kind of synthesis of word-play and meditation. In her work the space between what is offered and what is withheld is every bit as important as what is said. She has the power to comfort and to astonish in equal measure.