Writer
Anne Ryland’s poetry reflects a preoccupation with letters, silences and voices from the past. The coastline, landscape and history of the North filter into her writing. Recent poems explore themes such as home, exile and belonging; borders geographical and personal; places that become alternative homes (from ruins to furniture); language and its layers; and the miracles of the human body.
Anne Ryland’s new collection, Unruled Journal, has been described by Moniza Alvi as ‘deeply rewarding, far-reaching and humane’. In a review of Anne’s second collection, The Unmothering Class, Julian Colton commented: ‘There are many fine women poets on the scene at the moment. To an illustrious list add the name Anne Ryland.’
Her poems have been published in numerous anthologies, such as The Forward Book of Poetry (Faber, 2006), Land of Three Rivers (Bloodaxe, 2017), The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry (Valley Press, 2019), The Result Is What You See Today – Poems about Running (Smith Doorstop, 2019) and An Insubstantial Universe – A Poetry Anthology in Celebration of George Eliot (Yaffle Press, 2020). Magazine publications include Poetry Review, Magma, Oxford Poetry, The North, Agenda, Long Poem Magazine, Acumen, Poetry Salzburg Review, Ink Sweat and Tears and The High Window. Anne participated in the Newcastle University / Bloodaxe Poetics of the Archive Project, contributing two poems. She has written articles and reviews, and translated German poetry into English.
Anne’s poem Anna’s Left Hand won second prize in the 2016 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine (Open Category), and The Twins’ Heads was awarded first prize in the Kent and Sussex Poetry Competition 2009. Further competition successes include first prize in a poetry competition marking the British Museum’s Germany: Memories of a Nation exhibition, and Commendations in the Magma and Torbay Poetry Festival Competitions.
Anne has given many readings of her poetry at venues ranging from the National Poetry Library, Barbican Library and Keats House in London to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. She has read to audiences at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, the Newcastle Poetry Festival, the Hexham Book Festival and at community libraries across the North East. After inviting Anne to read at the Wordfringe Festival in Aberdeen, the late Gerard Rochford wrote: ‘She entranced a large audience who queued to buy her book.’
Watch and hear Anne reading her poems at the Newcastle Poetry Festival.