James Simpson

James Simpson is a Jerwood/Arvon award winner and prizewinner in the Thomas Hardy Society’s, James Gibson Memorial Poetry Prize. He is author of the books ‘Hunting the Wren’, ‘The Untenanted Room’, ‘Blind Tiger’, ‘The Rhyme of the Reddleman's Daughter’ and ‘Map of Lost Cuckoos’.

He has collaborated with the artist and printmaker Carolyn Trant on several Artists books; editions of which reside in private and public collections nationally and internationally. Their ‘Map of Lost Cuckoos’ Artists book is on display, next to the Magna Carta, in the Treasures Gallery of the British Library.

Praise for James Simpson’s recent work:

‘Map of Lost Cuckoos is the book of poems that has mattered most to me this past year. Who is there now, who in the manner of Blake, writes of all that matters with childlike, moving, hard worn simplicity?’

Kevin Crossley-Holland

‘Blind Tiger is a giant thing, a moving force, a living work that readers will never have finished with…. here it is: here’s what a prophetic poem after the Wasteland might look like and sound and feel and be like.’

Alexandra Harris