“(Poulsons) work has a crystalline quality that is unusual” (OSIRIS. U.S.A.)
“What May Sarton calls ‘the burden of mystery’ requires we speak of that of which we cannot speak. This is no less than a vocation, and Joan Poulson’s work is under that burden of necessity… is rare and worth our attention”
(David Hart)
Joan Poulson is a poet, dramatist, children’s writer and tutor born in Manchester. Her work is represented in 300+ anthologies, her books held in 665 libraries world-wide.
Publications:
earth-being, Below-the Moor Press 1992
Celebration (chn’s), UNICEF 1993
Girls are like Diamonds (chn’s), O.U.P. 1995
Pictures in my Mind (chn’s), Macdonald 1999
earth-being, Flarestack reprint 2000
Dear Ms (chn’s), A & C Black 2001
onetree singing, Blackthorn Books 2001
Sling a Jammy Doughnut (ed. chn’s), Hodder 2002
onetree journal, Flarestack 2010
Non-fiction:
Window on Winwick Hospital, Arts/N.W. Arts 1994
Ladywell Lives Hospital, Arts/N.W. Arts 1996
During the 1980s Joan had 14 books published on the subject of regional English food & its links with tradition, trained as a ceramicist, worked as scriptwriter for a B.B.C. radio soap, has held several long-term residencies: with a sculptor, modern dance company, musicians, painters & for almost 4 years in hospitals, working with adults with severe mental health issues.
She has read & exhibited her work nationally & internationally: New Mexico; Durham Art Gallery; Oslo; India; California; The South Bank Centre, London; Vermont Studio Center during a two-month scholarship stay (Vermont Fellowship); the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh; the Jeffrye Museum, London; has received bursaries from the Arts Council; twice received the Canadian Sandberg-Livesay Award & received awards from the U.S. National Federation of State Poetry Societies.
Her children’s collection Pictures in my Mind (Macdonald) was shortlisted for the Signal Award.
In 2012 her work for children will be represented on The Poetry Archive.