Freedom Poem is here.

Portia Nelson (1920–2001)

Portia was an American singer, songwriter, actress and author. She was a cabaret singer throughout the 1950s, and turned her hand to acting in the 1960s – often, coincidentally, playing nuns, including Sister Berthe in The Sound of Music. She wrote hundreds of songs, and was a voice coach for Hollywood stars including Jane Russell. Her book There’s A Hole in My Sidewalk (1977) became a key text in self-help and addiction recovery.

Autobiography in Five Chapters is here.

Grace Nichols (born 1950)

Grace was born in Guyana, and moved to Britain in 1977. Her first book, I is a Long-Memoried Woman, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1983, and she has also written stories and poems for children and a novel. She is inspired by folklore and Caribbean rhythms and culture. Grace has also edited anthologies of poetry and was poet in residence at the Tate Gallery from 1999 to 2000. Praise Song for My Mother is here.

Sheena Patel (born 1987)

Sheena lives and works in London. She is part of collective 4 Brown Girls Who Write.

Let Me Count the Ways is here.

Pascale Petit (born 1953)

Pascale was born in Paris, grew up in France and Wales and lives in Cornwall. She is of French/Welsh/Indian heritage. She began her artistic career as a sculptor, exhibiting work at venues including the Natural History Museum and on London Underground. Pascale’s poetry has won a multitude of awards, including the 2018 RSL Ondaatje Prize for Mama Amazonica (2017) and the 2013 Manchester Poetry Prize for Fauverie (2014). She is a recipient of the inaugural RSL Literature Matters award and in 2018 became an RSL Fellow. Her works have been translated into eighteen languages. Pascale has taught at Tate Modern and Arvon, among others, and was a co-founding tutor of The Poetry School. She performs internationally.

Sky Ladder is here.

Rachel Piercey

Rachel studied English Literature at Oxford, where she was President of the Oxford University Poetry Society and won the Newdigate Prize in 2008. She took her MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway in 2011. She has worked at the Poetry Society and for The Emma Press, where she co-edited pamphlets and anthologies. She tutors for The Poetry School and regularly visits schools, libraries and festivals encouraging children to read and write poetry. Rachel has published three collections of verse. The worlds is here.

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)

Sylvia was fiercely ambitious and worked tirelessly on her poetry. She attempted suicide in 1953 and her experiences recovering in a clinic inspired her only novel, The Bell Jar. In 1956 she met poet Ted Hughes while studying at Cambridge University. They married and had two children, but she struggled to find time to write with young children to care for and a house to run, and her career stalled while his took off. The relationship broke down and a distraught Sylvia plunged into a creative frenzy, getting up at dawn to write the furious poems for which she is best remembered. She took her own life during the freezing February of 1963. Her first poetry book had appeared in 1960, and Ariel, the collection that cemented her extraordinary reputation, appeared two years after her death.