Sarah Wardle

Sarah Wardle was born in London in 1969, educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, read Literae Humaniores at Lincoln College, Oxford, where she was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association, and English at the University of Sussex, where she gained a first, MA and DPhil. In 1999 she won the Geoffrey Dearmer prize and Poetry Review’s new poet of the year award. Her first book Fields Away (Bloodaxe Books, 2003) was shortlisted for Forward best first collection and was followed by Score! (2005), A Knowable World (2009) and Beyond (2014), all from Bloodaxe.

She has been poet-in-residence for Bedgebury National Pinetum, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, the British Council in Berlin and Transport for London at Embankment Station, and RLF Fellow at Royal Holloway, London. She is a poetry lecturer at Morley College, lecturer in poetry at Middlesex University and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Sarah has broadcast on national and international radio and television, including the BBC World Service and recently BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. For a decade and a half she has been a contributor to Poetry Review and the TLS, and her work has been widely reviewed, including in Poetry Review,the TLS, the Sunday Telegraph, the Guardian and the Sunday Times.

Sarah has taught in higher education since 2000 and has lots of experience of facilitating students’ learning, writing and development. A film-poem Sarah wrote starring the Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville can be viewed on the Bloodaxe website.