About the Author

U. A. FANTHORPE (1929 - 2009) was born in Kent and read English at St Anne's College, Oxford, before training as a teacher. She was Head of English at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and then 'became a middle-aged drop-out in order to write', publishing her first collection, Side Effects, in 1978. Her first Selected Poems was published by Penguin in 1986. Enitharmon Press publish her New & Collected Poems (2010), her Christmas Poems (2002) and From Me to You: Love Poems (2007). In 1994 U. A. Fanthorpe was the first woman to be nominated for the post of Professor of Poetry at Oxford. She was awarded the CBE in 2001 and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2003.

Reviews

STEPHEN FRY: The peerless U. A. Fanthorpe roots herself in the very earth of English poetry, connecting herself to Hughes and Browning, but also and more pertinently to the real experience of English living... so clear-eyed and so, well, completely poetic. CAROL ANN DUFFY: U. A. Fanthorpe was that rarest of beings, a poet who was hugely popular with the general public at the same time as being very seriously regarded by fellow poets and literary critics for her originality, wit and humanity ... I am only one of many poets who owe her a great debt and who is glad, always, to have her wonderful, warm, wise poems close.