Zoë Skoulding

FLSW The Learned Society of Wales () is a national academy, learned society and Charitable organization, charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the W ...

is a

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, living in Wales, whose work encompasses translation, editing, sound-based vocal performance, literary criticism and teaching creative writing. Her poetry has been widely anthologised, translated into over 25 languages and presented at numerous international festivals.

Career

Skoulding is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at

Bangor University Bangor University () is a Public university, public Research university, research university in Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales. It was established by Royal charter, Royal Charter in 1885 as the University College of North Wales (UCNW; ), and in 1893 ...

, where her research explores urban space, sound, ecopoetics, contemporary experimental poetry and translation. She has been involved in several collaborative poetry translation projects, including ''Metropoetica'', and has translated from French the selected poems of Luxembourg poet Jean Portante. In 2018 she received a Cholmondeley Award from the

Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to protect the rights and further the interests of authors. Membership of the society is open to "anyon ...

for the achievement and distinction of her body of work and her contribution to poetry. Her collection ''Footnotes to Water'' won the poetry category in the

Wales Book of the Year The Wales Book of the Year is a Welsh literary award given annually to the best Welsh and English language works in the fields of fiction and literary criticism by Welsh or Welsh interest authors. Established in 1992, the awards are currently ...

awards, 2020. As Editor of ''

Poetry Wales ''Poetry Wales'' is a triannual poetry magazine published in Bridgend, Wales. Founded by Meic Stephens and now published by Seren, it is edited by Zoë Brigley. Since its first publication in 1965, the magazine has built an international repu ...

'' from 2008 to 2014, she maintained the magazine's international focus and broadened its scope to include more experimental forms of poetry. Her musical collaborations include the psychogeographical collective

Parking Non-Stop Parking Non-Stop (sometimes abbreviated to PN-S) is a north Wales based psychogeographical musical/artistic collective who experiment in combining soundscape and field recordings with spoken word and music. The group consist of the poet Zoë S ...

and sound art/poetry performances with

Alan Holmes Alan Holmes is a musician and record producer, based in north Wales. Although he began his musical career in the late 1960s in childhood beat group the Insects, he first came to prominence in the Zuggs (in 1979), followed by A Silly Tree, the l ...

. In the 1990s, Skoulding wrote lyrics for the Welsh musicians Rheinallt H Rowlands and David Wrench, with whom she also played bass. She recorded and performed with the "anglo-welsh kosmische supergroup" The Serpents. In 2021, Skoulding was elected a

Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales The Learned Society of Wales () is a national academy, learned society and charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the Welsh nation. The Learned ...

Personal life

Zoë Skoulding was born in

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in 1967. Having lived in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, she now resides in

North Wales North Wales ( ) is a Regions of Wales, region of Wales, encompassing its northernmost areas. It borders mid Wales to the south, England to the east, and the Irish Sea to the north and west. The area is highly mountainous and rural, with Snowdon ...

with her musician husband,

Bibliography

Poetry collections

*1998 ''Tide Table'' *2004 ''The Mirror Trade'' *2007 ''Dark Wires'' (with Ian Davidson) *2008 ''From Here'' (with

Simonetta Moro Simonetta Moro is an Italian artist and academic administrator serving as the second president of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts since 2024. Life Moro is from Italy. She completed a B.F. A. in art history at the Accadem ...

) *2008 ''Remains of a Future City'' *2013 ''The Museum of Disappearing Sounds'' *2016 ''Teint: For the Bièvre'' *2018 ''Las habitaciones y otros poemas'' ranslators: Katherine Hedeen and Victor Rodríguez Núñez *2019 ''Footnotes to Water'' *2020 ''A Revolutionary Calendar'' *2022 ''A Marginal Sea''

Other publications

*2009 ''You Will Live in Your Own Cathedral'' (trilingual (En/Cz/D) booklet and audio CD with

, Richard Hopewell, Huw Jones, Monika Rinck, Eva Klimentova,

Alexandra Buchler Alexandra () is a female given name of Greek origin. It is the first attested form of its variants, including Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus ...

) *2008 ''Crwydro / Marcheurs Des Bois: A Wales Quebec Ambulation'' (with Daniel Poulin and Simon Whitehead) *2013 ''Metropoetica – Poetry and urban space: women writing cities'' (with Ingmāra Balode, Julia Fiedorczuk,

Sanna Karlström Sanna can refer to: Places *Sanna, Nordland, an island in Træna municipality, Nordland county, Norway *Sanna, Ardnamurchan, a village in the far west of Scotland *Sänna, a village in Rõuge Parish, Võru County, Estonia *Sanna (Inn), a river in ...

, Ana Pepelnik,

Sigurbjörg Þrastardóttir Sigurbjörg Þrastardóttir (born 27 August 1973) is an Icelandic writer. She was born in Akranes and received a BA in comparative literature and a degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of Iceland. She subsequently w ...

, Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese) *2013 ''Placing Poetry'' (edited with Ian Davidson)

Poems in anthologies

*2008 ''Women's Work: Modern Women Poets Writing in English'' (ed. Amy Wack and Eva Salzman, Seren) *2010 ''Identity Parade'' (ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe) *2010 ''Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets'' (ed. Carrie Etter, Shearsman) *2011 ''The Ground Aslant: Radical Landscape Poetry'' (ed. Harriet Tarlo, Shearsman) *2012 ''Best British Poetry 2012'' (ed. Sasha Dugdale, Salt) *2015 ''Out of Everywhere 2: Linguistically innovative poetry by women in the USA and UK'' (ed. Emily Critchley, Reality Street) *2021 ''Poetry and Covid-19'' (ed. Anthony Caleshu and Rory Waterman, Shearsman) *2021 ''Last Kind Words'' (ed. Peter Riley, Shearsman)

Monographs

*2013 ''Contemporary Women’s Poetry and Urban Space: Experimental Cities'' (Palgrave Macmillan). *2020 ''Poetry and listening: the noise of lyric'' (Liverpool University Press 2020)

Discography

*1996 Rheinallt H Rowlands – ''Bukowski'' *1997 David Wrench – ''Black Roses'' *1997 David Wrench – ''Blow Winds Blow'' *1997 David Wrench – ''The Ballad of the Christmas Tree and the Silver Birch'' *1998

The Serpents ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' ...

– ''No Mask, No Cloak, Dim Gobaith'' *1999 The Serpents – ''You Have Just Been Poisoned by the Serpents'' *2001 Various artists – ''Infrasonic Waves'' *2006

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

– ''Faust... in Autumn'' *2007 Various artists – ''Klangbad Festival 2007'' *2008

- ''Species Corridor'' *2009 Zoë Skoulding - ''You Will Live in Your Own Cathedral'' *2010 Parking Non-Stop - ''Cold Star''

Selected international performances

*2008 Medana Festival, Slovenia *2008 Nødutgang Festival, Bodø, Norway *2009 Ars Poetica, Bratislava *2009 Vilenica Festival, Slovenia (with Metropoetica) *2009 Berlin Poesiefestival *2009 AWEN International Festival of Poetry and Film, ATRiuM, Cardiff *2010 Readings/performances in Pondicherry, Chennai, Pune and Trivandrum as part of Poetry Connections with Literature Across Frontiers in association with the British Council *2010 Riga Poetry Evenings, Latvia (with Metropoetica) *2010 Lyd+Litteratur Aarhus, Denmark *2010 Printemps de Poètes, Luxembourg *2010 The Other Room Series, Manchester *2010 Granada International Festival of Poetry, Nicaragua *2011 Café Fra, Prague *2011 Wroclaw Port Festival, Poland (with Metropoetica) *2011 Dasein Café, Athens *2011 Ledbury Festival (with Poetry Connections) *2011 World Festival of Poetry, Venezuela *2011 Struga Poetry Evenings, Macedonia *2011 Novi Sad Literature Festival, Serbia *2011 Control Club, Bucharest (with Parking Non-Stop) *2011 Bodø Festival, Norway (with Parking Non-Stop) *2012 Ars Cameralis, Katowice *2012 Poets Live, Paris *2012 Dinefwr Festival *2012 Fiction Fiesta, Cardiff *2013 Stanza Festival, St Andrews *2013 Prague Bookworld *2013 Reading Poetry Festival *2013 Avant-Garde Festival, Schiphorst *2015 Izmir Poetry Festival, Turkey *2016 Managua Poetry Festival, Nicaragua *2016 Bursa Poetry Festival, Turkey *2017 Guayaquil International Poetry Festival, Ecuador *2017 Inizjamed Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival *2017 Luna de Locos Pereira International Poetry Festival, Colombia *2018 Safi Poetry Forum, Morocco *2018 University of California, Berkeley, USA *2018 International Poetry Festival of Costa Rica *2018 Ars Poetica, Slovakia *2019 Medellín International Poetry Festival, Colombia *2019 Double Change, Paris, France *2019 Festival Internacional de Poesía de Santiago de Chile *2022 Festival international de la Poésie de Trois Rivières, Québec *2022 Oroboro, Montréal, Québec

References

External links

*
Zoë Skoulding Bangor University staff page

Parking Non-Stop official website
;Poems online
SHEARSMAN BOOKSPN Review Print and Online Poetry Magazine - The Man in the Moone - Zoë Skoulding - PN Review 203
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skoulding, Zoe 1967 births Living people Welsh women poets Welsh poets Welsh musicians English experimental musicians English women poets Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales Academics of Bangor University