Jo Shapcott

Joins the expedition for week 4

Jo Shapcott was born in London. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, where she teaches on the MA in Creative Writing. She is the current President of The Poetry Society. Her Book: Poems 1988-1998 (2000), consists of a selection of poetry from her three earlier collections: Electroplating the Baby (1988), which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Best First Collection, Phrase Book (1992), and My Life Asleep (1998), which won the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection). She is co-editor (with Linda Anderson) of a collection of essays about Elizabeth Bishop. Her latest book of poems is Of Mutability, was published earlier this year and was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize and the Costa Award.

“The excellent title poem [Of Mutability], a deceptively casual sonnet, acts as something of a tissue sample for most of the book’s concerns, from the mutations of cells to the disruption of the seasons, in a voice as mutable as the phenomena it describes.” Frances Leviston, Guardian.