Polly Clark was born in Canada and brought up in Scotland. She received an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1997. Three collections followed from Bloodaxe: the first, Kiss (2000), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; her second, Take Me with You (2005), was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; her third was Farewell My Lovely (2009). Her pamphlet, A Handbook for the Afterlife, was shortlisted in the 2016 Michael Marks Awards. Poems from these collections and new poems are included in her forthcoming Afterlife: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2026).
Her debut novel, Larchfield (Quercus, 2017), fictionalised a little-known period in the life of W.H. Auden. It won the Mslexia Prize, as well as critical plaudits from Margaret Atwood, Louis de Bernières and Richard Ford. Her follow-up, Tiger (Quercus, 2019), was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. Her third novel, Ocean, is published by Eye Books in 2025. In 2024 she serialised Ocean in podcast form on her substack which showcases new work by her and by her subscribers, offering a supportive space for writers to develop their craft. She has also published short stories, and her memoir, Thank You So Much For Writing, won the 2014 Tony Lothian Prize for a new, unpublished biography. She lives on a houseboat in London.
Author photo: Murdo McLeod
