Lesley Saunders

poet and educationalist

poetry

‘She shares with fine poets like Jane Draycott and Charles Tomlinson an incredibly clear-eyed perception in language which is as musical as it is exact… Lesley Saunders is a very exciting and interesting writer who deserves your closer attention.’ David Morley

‘I knew that Lesley Saunders was on to the real right thing the moment I first read a poem of hers, In Praise of Felt Tips, back in 1987… She is an exciting poet.’ Anthony Thwaite

‘Lesley Saunders makes a sparkling debut with The Dark Larder… Her poems are vivid, edgy and accomplished.’ Helen Dunmore

I have four published collections, The Dark Larder (Corridor Press, 1997); Christina the Astonishing, with Jane Draycott and Peter Hay (Two Rivers Press, 1998); Her Leafy Eye (Two Rivers Press, 2009), a collaboration with artist Geoff Carr; and, most recently, No Doves published by Mulfran Press.  Dark Larder’s title poem won first prize in the George MacBeth poetry competition and Christina was featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘A Good Read’. Her Leafy Eye was inspired by Rousham Gardens in Oxfordshire, landscaped in the 1730s by William Kent.

I’ve also had numerous individual poems published in, for example, the London Review of Books, Mslexia, the Rialto, Staple, Writing Women, Spare Rib, The Warwick Review and The Poetry Business anthology. My poem ‘The Uses of Greek’ was shortlisted for the Best Single Poem in the Forward Prize 1999; more recently, I won first prize in the Buxton Festival 2008 poetry competition, third prize in the English Association inaugural poetry competition in 2006, and a commendation in the Arvon International Poetry Competition 2006. My work is featured in various places, including the anthology Divers published by Aark Arts 2008, on the River and Rowing Museum website, and in the Leeds hospitals’ poster project: Poems While You Wait. I have broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and performed at The Voicebox, South Bank Centre, London.

The Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University launched the Manchester Poetry Prize in 2008, a new literary competition celebrating excellence in creative writing. A prize of £10,000 was awarded to the writer of the best portfolio of poems submitted and I won the award jointly with another poet, Mandy Coe.  In 2010, I was a finalist in the same competition.

I especially love working with other people:  I’ve performed my work over many years with The Bloody Poets, sharing a stage on different occasions with Paul Foot and Tony Benn; and in partnership with dancer Liza Wedgwood in the shows Golden Dance, Silver Words, Miniatures and Some Languages Are Hard To Dream In, and with dancers Nicola Taylor and Jenny Coxwell-White in The Red Scarf.  The singer-songwriter Bobby Patrick has set some of my poems to music.

I was commissioned to act as poet-in-residence at a three-day international health and social care conference in 2006:  the resultant collection, Islands into a Continent, can be viewed at: http://www.health-disciplines.ubc.ca/intered/

recent projects

The sound of violets, with Alison Phipps (poet and academic), a dialogue in poetry for policy - see academic publications list below

Castings, with Malcolm Rigg (photographer), a sequence of poems to commemorate the centennial exhibition in 2007 of the Royal British Society of Sculptors at Abbey House Gardens, Malmesbury - contact me to receive a zip file or a pdf of the poems and photos

various one-day creative writing workshops for school staff and headteachers

in 2008-10, I was awarded a Visiting Scholarship at Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall), Cambridge, to create a poetry project about the gardens, which are sustainably managed as well as being excitingly designed: New Hall Gardens

also in 2010 I had a short-term writing residency at Acton Court, a beautiful and atmospheric Tudor house built for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

in 2011 I’ve been working on a collection of poems inspired by the Whipple Museum, Cambridge.

I am a member of the Poetry Workshop, and an experienced editor.

Academic publications on the theme of poetry:

SAUNDERS, L. (2003).  ‘On flying, writing poetry and doing educational research.’ British Educational Research Journal, 29, 2, 175–187.
Read the paper [pdf]

SAUNDERS, L. (2006). ‘”Something made in language”: the poet’s gift?’, Management Decision (Special Issue), 44, 4, 504–11.

SAUNDERS, L. (2007). ‘An alternative way of responding to powerful ideas:  a poem entitled “Five Principles of Quality in Narratives of Action Research” plus notes’, Educational Action Research, 15, 1, 33–40.

PHIPPS, A. and SAUNDERS, L. (2009). ‘The sound of violets: the ethnographic potency of poetry?’ Ethnography and Education Special Issue, 4, 3, 357–87.

SAUNDERS, L. (2010). ‘The language of flowers? “Voice” in the garden’.  Paper presented at Poetry and Voice: a creative and critical conference, University of Chichester, Chichester, 27 June.