Pauline Anita Stainer (''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Rogers, born 5 March 1941) is an English poet. She was born

Burslem Burslem ( ) is one of the six towns that along with Hanley, Tunstall, Fenton, Longton and Stoke-upon-Trent form part of the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. It is often referred to as the "mother town" of Stoke on Trent. T ...

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

, Staffordshire. She left the city to study at

St Anne's College, Oxford St Anne's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 and gained full college status in 1959. Originally a women's college, it has admitted men since 1979. It has some 450 undergraduate and 200 ...

, where she took a degree in English. After Oxford she completed an MPhil degree at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

Biography

Her determinedly neo-romantic poetry explores sacred myth, legend, history-in-landscape, and human feeling—and their connections to the 'inner landscapes' of the imaginative mind. Her choice of subject matter is perhaps partly a reaction to her growing up in the

industrial city An industrial city or industrial town is a town or city in which the municipal economy, at least historically, is centered around industry, with important factories or other production facilities in the town. It has been part of most countries' ...

. The compact vividness of her visual imagery is akin to that of the Anglo Saxon riddles,

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

poetry, or the work of

García Lorca García or Garcia may refer to: People * García (surname) * Kings of Pamplona/Navarre ** García Íñiguez of Pamplona, king of Pamplona 851/2–882 ** García Sánchez I of Pamplona, king of Pamplona 931–970 ** García Sánchez II of Pampl ...

. Reviewers have also detected the influence of

Ted Hughes Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...

in her work. She was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 1987. She came to public notice with her first volume, ''The Honeycomb'' (1989). Her later volumes, ''Sighting the Slave Ship'' (1992) and ''The Ice-Pilot Speaks'' (1994) led up to her nomination and shortlisting in the

Whitbread Poetry Award The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...

for her fourth collection ''The Wound-Dresser's Dream'' (1996). Her poetry has won numerous prizes. In 2003

Bloodaxe Books Bloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specializing in poetry. History Bloodaxe Books was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Bloodaxe moved its editorial office to Northumbe ...

published a summation of her work to date, ''The Lady and the Hare: New and Selected Poems'', although this did not reproduce the illustrations that have accompanied some of her poems in book form. After completing her education she moved to

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, raising four children. She spent several years on the

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

island of

Rousay Rousay (, sco, Rousee; non, Hrólfsey meaning Rolf's Island) is a small, hilly island about north of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. It has been nicknamed "Egypt of the north", due to its archaeological diversit ...

, from which came a new book collection ''Parable Island'' (1999). She recently lived in

Hadleigh, Suffolk Hadleigh () is an ancient market town and civil parish in South Suffolk, East Anglia, situated, next to the River Brett, between the larger towns of Sudbury and Ipswich. It had a population of 8,253 at the 2011 census. The headquarters of Bab ...

before moving back to Essex in late 2017. She has collaborated with, and has been published by the Brotherhood of Ruralists, but is now published by the major poetry book publisher

. Her most recent works are ''Sleeping Under the Juniper Tree'' (2017) and ''The Silence of Sound Mirrors'' (2021), the latter included illustrations by Rosamund Ulph.

Awards

*1987 Hawthornden Fellowship Prize *1994 Poetry Book Society's New Generation Poet *2000 King's Lynn Award for Merit in Poetry *2009

Cholmondeley Award The Cholmondeley Awards () are annual awards for poetry given by the Society of Authors in the United Kingdom. Awards honour distinguished poets, from a fund endowed by the Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966. Since 1991 the award has bee ...

Bibliography

* ''The Honeycomb'' (1989) * ''Little Egypt'' (1991) * ''Sighting the Slave Ship'' (1992) * ''Frequencies'' (1993) * ''The Ice-Pilot Speaks'' (1994) * ''The Wound-dresser's Dream'' (1996) * ''Parable Island'' (1999) * ''A Litany of High Waters'' (2002) * ''The Lady and the Hare: New and Selected Poems'' (2003) * ''Crossing the Snowline'' (2008) * ''Tiger Facing the Mist'' (2013) * ''Sleeping Under the Juniper Tree'' (2017) * ''The Silence of Sound Mirrors'' (2021)

References

External links

* Derrick Woolf.
The Art of Pauline Stainer
'. * Pauline Stainer.

'. * ''The Guardian'' newspape

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stainer, Pauline 1941 births Living people People associated with Orkney Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Southampton People from Burslem People from Hadleigh, Suffolk English women poets