Angela Kirby

Angela Kirby (née Birtwistle) is an English poet and non-fiction writer. Shoestring Press have published five of her poetry collections.

Angela Kirby
Born4 July 1932
Lancashire
OccupationPoet and Non-fiction writer
NationalityBritish
Period1960–present

Background

Born 4 July 1932 in rural Lancashire, England, the eighth and last child of a cotton-mill owner James Astley Birtwistle and his wife Muriel Mary (née Marwood). [1][2][3] An elder sister was the poet and gallery owner, Iris (IM) Birtwistle. Her brother Col. Michael Albert Astley Birtwistle was a High Sheriff of Lancashire, and she was a cousin of race horse trainer Monica Dickinson (née Birtwistle), the mother of Michael Dickinson. She is the grandmother of Marine Sam Alexander MC killed while on a patrol in 2011 Afghanistan in 2011 by an improvised explosive device (IED).

She was educated by governesses until she was 11, and then at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Brighton; Rye St Antony, Oxford; and St Mary’s Convent, Ascot. She received her MA from Sussex University in 1998 and DPhil in 2006. Married in 1952 to Royal Naval Officer Giles Kirby with five surviving children.[2][1]

After her divorce in 1975, Kirby worked as a chef, a garden designer, freelance journalist and non-fiction writer on food and gardening.[4] Her first book, Fast Cook was published by Hutchinson in 1982 and other non-fiction books followed until 1998.

With the encouragement of her sister Iris (IM) Birtwistle she began to write poetry as a child and was first published in 1960 but more regularly from 1981.[2] From 1990 she began to concentrate on poetry, becoming published and anthologised,[3] read on BBC TV and Radio 4 and winning the BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year in 1996 and 2001.[5][1]

Bibliography

Poetry collections
  • 2004: Mr Irresistible (Shoestring)
  • 2008: Dirty Work (Shoestring)
  • 2013: The Scent of Winter (Shoestring)
  • 2015: The Days After Always, New and Selected Poems (Shoestring)
  • 2019: Look Left, Look Right (Shoestring)

Non-fiction
  • 1982: Fast Cook, Good Food for Busy People (Hutchinson)
  • 1987: Blooming Ingenious, the impoverished gardener’s guide (Souvenir)
  • 1989: Fragrance in the Home (Tigerprint)
  • 1997: Gardening in Small Spaces (Pavilion)
  • 1998: The Rose Garden, a journal (Friedman Fairfax)

Editor
  • 2008: When Leaf and Note are Gone, Poems of I M Birtwistle (with Anne Stewart) (Buff)
gollark: Technically, I can just read them out of the apiodatabasees.
gollark: Your game lacks smelting!?‽
gollark: Ah.
gollark: That should lead to burned tree or something.
gollark: muahaha.

References
  1. Who's Who in Catholic Life, Joseph Kelly. Universe Media Group Ltd (2013) p. 307 ISBN 978-1904657866
  2. ‘I love ritual, incense and Latin’, Peter Stanford, Catholic Herald, 2 January 2009
  3. Book and Kitchen: An Evening of Drinks and Poetry, London Magazine, 1 March 2017
  4. Angela Kirby, BBC Radio 4: Woman's Hour, 31 August 2001
  5. Notes on contributors: Angela Kirby, London Magazine, 1 April 2015
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