‘Riches I hold in light esteem’ is here.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

Elizabeth received an excellent education at home from her adoring but overprotective father, and published poetry from her teens onwards. Despite living as an invalid and recluse – perhaps devastated at her brother drowning, perhaps injured in a fall from a horse – her poetry was hugely popular. She attracted fan mail from Robert Browning – then an aspiring poet, six years her junior – and their relationship revived her sufficiently to elope with him to Italy, get married and have a son. Her father never forgave them. A greater celebrity than her husband during their lifetimes, Elizabeth also involved herself in contemporary politics. She was a passionate critic of slavery and child labour, and her epic poem Aurora Leigh was remarkable for its strong heroine and contemporary setting.

Extract from Aurora Leigh is here.

Colette Bryce (born 1970)

Colette is an award-winning poet from Northern Ireland. Born and brought up in Derry, she moved to England as a student in 1988 and settled in London for some years before starting out as a writer. She received the Eric Gregory Award for emerging poets in 1995. After a year teaching in Madrid, she took up a fellowship at Dundee University from 2002 to 2005, and was subsequently appointed North East Literary Fellow at the Universities of Newcastle and Durham. She currently lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where she works as a freelance writer and editor.

The Full Indian Rope Trick is here.

Helen Burke (born 1953)

Helen was born in Doncaster to Irish parents and started writing poetry in 1989. Her poems have been widely published and anthologized, and she has won numerous prizes. Since the 1970s, Helen’s poems have appeared in pamphlets, on greetings cards, on pieces of origami, on radio, on tape, on CD, on the side of stray dogs and in a million other places. Her verses have been set to music by an Australian orchestra and she has performed with jazz, rock and Irish folk musicians.

The Road Out of Town is here.

Helen Cadbury (1965–2017)

Helen was a British crime fiction author, poet and playwright, whose debut novel To Catch a Rabbit won the Northern Crime Award. Born in the Midlands, Helen grew up near Oldham and spent the last 15 years of her life in York. When she was a child she wanted to be an actor, a writer, or an ice cream man’s assistant – and achieved the first two ambitions. The first collection of her poetry, Forever, Now, was published in November 2017.

Functional Skills Maths is here.

Jen Campbell (born 1987)

Jen is an award-winning poet, children’s author and short story writer. She has received an Eric Gregory Award and won the Jane Martin Poetry Prize. Jen worked as a bookseller for ten years and wrote the Sunday Times bestselling Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops series. She appears regularly on BBC Radio 5 Live, is Vlogger in Residence for the Poetry Book Society, has a popular YouTube channel and a podcast, runs online working workshops and speaks at schools, universities and book festivals.