New and Recent Poetry from the North: Spring 2025
It’s a bumper season for Northern poetry! We’ve put together a list of some of the best new collections to look out for, from talented new writers as well as established poets you know and love.
Everything is Present (Salt) is the new collection by the wonderful Newcastle-based poet Anna Woodford. The book includes poems that have won the Ledbury Competition and the Wigtown Prize and is structured in three sections: End, Middle and Beginning (in that order). These are deeply reflective, closely personal and carefully constructed poems that eloquently explore family history and loss.
Kimberly Campanello is a gifted and amazingly insightful poet who is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds. Her collection An Interesting Detail (Bloomsbury Poetry) includes prose poems and sequences that encompass wide themes in a compelling, urgent voice.
I can’t wait to read What She Said (Verve) by Ilisha Thiru Purcell, a truly exceptional emerging poet who was part of the inaugural Poets of Colour Incubator programme. Her stunning and haunting debut pamphlet is inspired by classical Tamil poetics and crosses the landscapes of the North East of England.
Previous Northern Writers’ Awards recipient Vidyan Ravinthiran’s new collection, Avidya (Bloodaxe) explores the poet’s movements between the UK, Sri Lanka and the US over the past ten years. An extraordinarily accomplished and tender poet, Ravinthiran’s new work is much anticipated.
New Famous Phrases (Broken Sleep), the debut collection by Newcastle-based poet Daniel Hinds, has received praise from writers such as John Challis and David Morely. This is ambitious and lyrical new work with a wide and expansive outlook.
Almost, With Tenderness (Out-Spoken), is the first pamphlet by the brilliant poet Maya Caspari, who lectures at the University of York.
Subcutaneous is a new pamphlet by Maria Isakova Bennett, who previously won a New North Poet Award from New Writing North. Her engaging poems are full of clarity and elegance.
Lastly, Sarah-Clare Conlon’s Wanderland (Red Ceilings Press) is full of gorgeous observational poems about nature that are lovely to read and greatly skilled. Poems like ‘Colour by Numbers’ and ‘Thoughts on Silence’ have beautiful, memorable lies that conjure precise visual images.
If you’re a poet based in the north or a publisher with a new collection or pamphlet by a northern poet and would like to be considered for future versions of this round-up, please get in touch with [email protected].
All Bookshop.org links above are affiliate links. View our full Spring 2025 affiliate list here.