Rebecca Bird
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Rebecca Bird

Poet | Writer | Editor

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About Me

Rebecca Bird was born in 1991 and works as a poet, writer, reviewer. She spends her time between Guildford, London, and Exeter. She is formerly the Steering Editor of Hinterland Journal of Contemporary Poetry.

Her debut chapbook 'Shrinking Ultraviolet' was published by Eyewear Publishing in June 2017.

Writing CV

PUBLICATIONS

2017  'Shrinking Ultraviolet' (London, Eyewear Publishing)


SELECTED JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS

Rebecca Bird has been published, or has work forthcoming in And Other Poems, Antiphon, Bare Fiction, The Bakery, Cake, Coffee House, The Crane Papers, Envoi, The English Chicago Review, Eunoia Review, Four and Twenty, Glitterwolf, Ink Sweat and Tears, HARK, The Interpreter’s House, The New Writer, Ofi Press (Mexico City), The Poetry Shed, Poetry Quarterly, Prole, The Rialto, The Stare’s Nest, Under the Radar, The Whistling Fire, The Best of British Poetry and Crystal Voices – Crystal Clear Creators’ 10th Anniversary Anthology.

Poems available online:
The Poetry Shed
Ink, Sweat and Tears
And Other Poems
Antiphon


ANTHOLOGIES

2015  Crystal Voices: 10 Years of Crystal Clear Creators (available here)


OTHER

2017  Short story, 'Good Little Awakenings' published by Litro

2017  Named by the Huffington Post as one of the British Poets to Watch 2017

2015  Nominated by Under the Radar for the Pushcart Best Single Poem Prize 2015

2014  Nominated by the Ofi Press for the Pushcart Prize 2014

2013  Editor of Hinterland Journal of Contemporary Poetry

2013  Contributor for Planet Ivy

2013  Reviewer at Sphinx

2013  Session Guitarist/Songwriter, with various artists


PERFORMANCES

2017  Words and Jazz, Dalston, special guest performance

2017  Shindig! At the Western, Leicester, featured guest

2014  Bossa, Leicester, special guest performance

2014  Shindig! At The Western, Leicester, featured guest

2013  UniSlam!, Birmingham University, 27th October

2013  Emergency! At the Y, Y Theatre, Leicester, 7th November

EDUCATION

2011 - 2014  BA (Hons) Creative Writing with English - De Montfort University, First Class Honours

COMMENTS

Rebecca Bird's poems are fine cut-glass: transparent, elegant, and sharp-edged. There's a tensile quality to them, as if the language has been pulled to the point of breaking; a new-minted quality to the images that makes the experience of reading them at once so challenging and rewarding. She is an excellent lyric poet, attuned to all the possibilities of what can be done in that form; an outstanding new talent marked by its intelligence, subtlety, and confidence.”

Ian Parks

wry, sharp and well-observed”

Gary Longden

Genuine lyrical flair, vivid image construction, inventive phrasing; cadence is nuanced and natural. ('the dance of the intellect amongst words' as Pound would have it)

Simon Perril

I was struck first by the energy, economy and sparkling clarity of the imagery of Rebecca's poetry during a performance at one of Leicester's regular Shindig! poetry nights”

Roy Marshall

Rebecca Bird's 'Some Lovers Try Positions They Can't Handle' is a beautifully fluid, imagery dense poem that I instantly fell in love with. The descriptions are slippery, as soft as breath or touch.”

Wendy Pratt

Witty and makes a great cappuccino!”

Kevin Cheung

Poems

Moment Magnitude

With thanks to Maria Taylor & Jonathan Taylor

The world is the same since I became a woman, though
I am now alive enough to walk across it. Columbus thinks

the sphere has doughed; is more malleable, maybe God
has returned with his steam iron and pushed the oceans

further out so we always have something to walk towards.
I think Atlas has far less to hold nowadays but the shape

is the same. Because I feel her now. The thin sutra of dark
jangling under my bones as she turns, a subway carriage,

volcanoes heating up their soups, punch-drunk
and plosive; continents spinning off past each other

on finest china, I see the entirety, this earth of ours:
turning slowly because we know we are the only ones

and no one has yet to catch up.

   

Golden Gate Pt 2

With thanks to Albert Abonado, The Bakery

It is 2am little bird and the cars are passing by like afternoons
a sleepy one every now and then   and the frost has deepened

like a voice      across town you are perched
in your uncle’s coat   hug-warm   a bridge rotting beneath

already wondering how you’d look   pressed into silt.
If I could reach from my window I would pluck you out

and brush the dark from your knees   I need to know
sweet bird   did you leave a note?   and does it tell me

what you see in the water
and what the water sees in you

contact me

I am available for workshops and seminars

 For Hinterland related queries, please see
www.hinterlandpoetry.com

 Tweet me at @thisisthebird or
 Email me using this contact form...


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