Claire Crowther is a British poet and author of five full-length poetry collections, Stretch of Closures, The Clockwork Gift, On Narrowness, Solar Cruise and A Pair of Three and six pamphlets, Knithoard, Bare George, Silents, Incense, Mollicle, and Glass Harmonica. Crowther is Deputy and Reviews Editor of Long Poem Magazine. [1]
Crowther was awarded a first class BA in English Language and Literature from Manchester University and a doctorate in creative writing from Kingston University. [1]
The Clockwork Gift, Crowther's 2009 collection with Shearsman Books, is "a long poem project exploring the conflicts between the cultural expectations and real lives of twentieth-century grandmothers." [2] Of her third full-length poetry collection published in 2015, On Narrowness, it has been written that "her poetry is never easy [...] but it’s hugely rewarding, because Crowther’s curiosity about both words and the processes of living and dying compel you to consider familiar subjects in a fresh way." [3]
Crowther's poetry has been widely reviewed, being described in some cases as "urgent music [...] condensed, quick-witted poems," [4] "quirky without being fey, not troubling to reassure the reader, [the poems] give the impression of an uncompromising intelligence at work," [5] and "crystal-clear [but] more often [...] riddling, veering, mysterious; deadly serious or quietly funny." [6] Crowther's poetry has been published in several journals such as the London Review of Books , PN Review, Poetry Wales, and Blackbox Manifold, among others. [7] [1]
In 2014, Crowther undertook a Poet-in-Residence position with the Royal Mint Museum [8] and she has also reviewed books [9] [10] and written essays. [11] [12]
Crowther's collection Stretch of Closures (Shearsman Books, 2007) [13] was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh Best First Collection Prize. [2] In 2015 her work was published in the Best British Poetry 2015 with Salt Publishing. [14] Solar Cruise was awarded a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Spring 2020.
Crowther has two daughters and lives in Somerset with her husband Keith Barnham, a solar physicist. [15] [16] [17]