The Writers of Wales Database

WIGLEY, ANNA

Poet. Anna was born in Cardiff in 1962 and has lived there all her life. She completed a PhD on the novels of Iris Murdoch at Cardiff University, and now works as a freelance writer and book reviewer. Anna has won the Mencap Prize (1998), the Robert Bloomfield Award, the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize (2000) and the Guardian Essay Competition (2001). She has been published in numerous poetry magazines. Her first collection of poems, The Bird Hospital, appeared in 2002; her first collection of short stories Footprints, was published by Gomer in 2003. She lives in Roath.

Reviews:
With respect to Waking in Winter (Gomer, 2009)

"…A bright and rising star of English-language poetry in this decade..."
Robin Young, Planet

"...A quietly forceful poetic identity..."
Tiffany Atkinson, New Welsh Review

"...An arresting new collection by one of Wales’ most sensitive lyric poets, Waking in Winter speaks with crystalline clarity, delicate power, witty exuberance and focused intimacy of address..."
Stevie Davies


Selected Publications:
The Bird Hospital (Gomer, 2002)
Footprints (Gomer, 2004)
Durer’s Hare (Gomer, 2005)
Waking in Winter (Gomer, 2009)




Waking in Winter (Gomer, 2009)

Waking in Winter - Anna Wigley’s third volume of poetry - is a collection of celebrations and laments, lyrics to the living and dead. Attuned to the pressures of history, these poems explore grief, love and the uncanniness of the everyday. Bringing together pieces on themes as diverse as missing cats, car advertisements and Chinese foot-binding, the collection displays a playfulness alongside more elegiac and nostalgic moods.

As in her previous collections, the author continues to eschew fashionably vernacular accents and ironies in favour of a personal, authentic voice and a spiritual engagement with her environment, both urban and rural.

To purchase this title from gwales.com, please click on its front cover