Christy Ducker

Christy Ducker is the author of four poetry books and pamphlets: Messenger (Smith Doorstop, 2017), Heroes (Smith Doorstop, 2016), Skipper (Smith Doorstop, 2015) and Armour (Smith Doorstop, 2011). Her work has won a Northern Writers’ award, a Forward prize commendation, and a selection as PBS pamphlet choice. Favourable reviews and articles about her writing have featured in the TLS, The Guardian and Brain Pickings, among others. A social poet, Christy takes poetry into places it rarely travels. She has collaborated with a wide range of people to generate poems, including transplant surgeons, hydrographers, horse dentists and trawlermen. She frequently works as a poet in residence, most recently with the National Trust, Newcastle hospitals, British Lung Foundation, and York’s Centre for Chronic Diseases. Christy has a particular interest in the relationship between poetry and health. She is currently working on a new collection of poems which explores how socio- politics intersect with the human body. As part of this process, she spent a year at Edinburgh Surgeons’ Hall writing ‘Poetry and the Pathology Museum: a model of difference’. This experimental poetry-essay was published as a chapter in the co-authored book, Post-Specimen (Intellect Books, 2020). Passionate about education, Christy has over twenty years’ teaching and public engagement experience. Before becoming a professional writer, and gaining a PhD in creative writing, she taught English in secondary schools. She now tutors creative writing courses for university students, and runs numerous poetry workshops with the general public.