Rebecca Goss is a poet, tutor and mentor living in Suffolk. Her first full-length collection, The Anatomy of Structures, was published by Flambard Press in 2010. Her second collection, Her Birth (Carcanet/Northern House, 2013), was shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Prize for Best Collection, won the Poetry category in the East Anglian Book Awards 2013, and in 2015 was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Writing and the Portico Prize for Literature. In 2014, Rebecca was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets. Her second pamphlet Carousel, a collaboration with the photographer Chris Routledge, was published by Guillemot Press in 2018. Rebecca’s third full-length collection, Girl, was published with Carcanet/Northern House in 2019 and shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards 2019. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Cardiff University and a PhD by Publication from the University of East Anglia. She was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge 2020-22 and at the University of Suffolk 2022-23.
Author photo by Natalie J Watts.
'Tender, lyrical and deftly crafted, Goss's poems reveal the complexity of family life, especially the closeness and unspoken love in the bond between mother and daughter, while capturing oneâs need for love, and the difficult reconciliation of longings and dreams.'
Jennifer Wong, The Poetry Review
'Latch brings us an evocation of the past which avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality or nostalgia. Instead here is something sharp, joyful and interrogating: a bright, taut view of a rural English childhood. Her astute eye lets nothing through as the latch of memory and the blacksmith's making become a vehicle for a poised engagement with the shifting roles of motherhood across time.'
Deryn Rees-Jones
'This collection collapses the boundaries between land and lineage, is filled with portent, vestige, longing. I don't know how it's possible for these poems to be so intimate, yet vast. They beat fiercely with bird-animal-human hearts.'
Tishani Doshi
Awards won by Rebecca Goss
Short-listed, 2019 The East Anglian Book (Poetry) Award (Girl)
Winner, 2014 East Anglian Book Awards for Poetry (Her Birth)
Short-listed, 2015 The Portico Prize for Literature (Her Birth)
Short-listed, 2015 The Warwick Prize for Writing (Her Birth)
Short-listed, 2013 The Forward Prize for Best Collection (Her Birth)
