Emily Critchley

Emily Critchley (born 1980) is an experimental writer and academic. Her writings have garnered numerous international awards, including the Jane Martin Prize for Poetry (2011) and the John Kinsella-Tracy Ryan Prize for Poetry, among others. Her work has been translated into several languages.

Early life
Critchley was born in Athens, Greece, and grew up in Dorset, England. Her mother is Greek. She states that her influences include T. S. Eliot, the Language poets, Gertrude Stein, and John Berryman, among others.

Education
Critchley gained her B.A. from the University of Oxford, her MA in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Bristol University, and completed a PhD entitled "'Doubts, Complications and Distractions': Rethinking the Role of Women in Language Poetry" at the University of Cambridge.

Career
Critchley specializes in contemporary experimental writing. In 2006, she organized a three-day international conference for contemporary experimental women's writing at the University of Cambridge and another in 2010 at the University of Greenwich. She is an editor of Out of Everywhere 2: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America & the UK, the sequel to the poetry anthology Out of Everywhere published by Reality Street Press in 1996. She is a co-editor of #MeToo: A Poetry Collective.

Critchley has been anthologised and interviewed, and her work has been critically reviewed by Maryam Hessavi in Poetry London (autumn 2019); Peter Riley in The Fortnightly Review (summer 2019); Isabel Galleymore in Prac Crit, 9 (August 2017) and Professor David and Christine Kennedy in Women's Experimental Poetry in Britain 1970 – 2010 (Liverpool University Press, 2013).

Critchley's writing has been compared to that of Denise Riley, Leslie Scalapino, and Mina Loy. She has been performing her work since 2000. In 2004, she won the John Kinsella-Tracy Ryan prize for poetry and in 2011, was joint winner of the national Jane Martin Prize for Poetry.

Critchley is Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Greenwich. She currently lives in London.

Critical writing

 * Afterword to Adelaide Ivánova's The Hammer and Other Poems (The Poetry Translation Centre, April 2019)
 * Introduction to #MeToo: A Poetry Collective (Chicago Review, Summer, 2018)
 * 'W.S. Graham and the Caught Habits of Language', talk, Newcastle Poetry Festival (summer 2018)
 * Entries on Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Rosmarie Waldrop, Jean Day, Vanessa Place, Jennifer Moxley and Alice Notley in The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry, ed. Ian Hamilton and Jeremy Noel Tod (Oxford University Press, 2013)
 * 'Denise Riley: "Writing our / Difficulties,"' Poetry Review (2012)
 * '"Moi aussi, Marianne," or Moving the Targets, being a crypto-ironic response, etc.' The Claudius App (August 2011)
 * Guest editor of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, 3:2: a Greenwich Cross-Genre Festival edition (September 2011)
 * '"We live on buoyant fragments" (Andrea Brady): A further selection of American writers from the Greenwich Cross-Genre Festival,' Cambridge Literary Review, ed. Boris Jardine and Lydia White, 1:5 (May, 2011)
 * 'A selection of North American women writers from the Greenwich Cross-Genre Festival (July 2010), and some thoughts about their work', Cambridge Literary Review, ed. Boris Jardine and Lydia White, 1:4 (Michaelmas 2010); pp. 9–43
 * 'Lyn Hejinian's Faustienne Beings-With', Stress Fractures, ed., Tom Chivers (London: Penned in the Margins, 2010), pp. 55–72
 * 'Leslie Scalapino's "alternative ways of seeing"', Delirious Hem, eds, Cara Benson, Elizabeth Bryant, Catherine Wagner (September 5, 2010) lesliescalapinotribute.wikispaces.com/file/view/Emily+Critchley7.pdf
 * Review of Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip, HOW2 Journal, 3: 3 (2009)
 * '"[D]oubts, Complications and Distractions": Rethinking the Role of Women in Language Poetry', Hot Gun! ed., Josh Stanley, 1:1 (Summer 09) ), pp. 29–49
 * 'Post-Marginal Positions: Women and the UK Experimental/Avant-Garde Poetry Community', ed. Cathy Wagner, Jacket magazine, 1:34 (Oct 2007)
 * 'Dilemmatic boundaries: constructing a poetics of thinking', Intercapillary Space, ed, Edmund Hardy, 1:4 (November 2006) www.lulu.com/items/volume_34/533000/533882/2/print/533882.pdf
 * A conference overview + introduction to the Cambridge Contemporary Experimental Women's Poetry Festival (organised by myself in 2006), How2 journal, vol. 3:1 (Summer 2007)

Published works

 * When I say I Believe Women… (London: bad press, 2006)
 * Of All the Surprises (Switzerland: Dusie, 2007)
 * Who handles one over the Backlash (Norfolk: Oystercatcher press, 2008)
 * Hopeful For Love Are Th' Impoverish'd Of Faith (Southampton: Torque press, 2010)
 * Love / All That / & OK: Selected Writing (London: Penned in the Margins, 2011)
 * Sonnets for Luke (Liverpool: Holdfire press, 2011)
 * IMAGINARYLOVEPOEMS (Paris: Corrupt Press, 2011)
 * This is not a True Thing (London: Intercapillary Press, 2013)
 * Salutation to Poetry with John Hall (London: Crater Press, 2015)
 * Some Curious Thing (London: Barque Press, 2016)
 * Ten Thousand Things (Norfolk: Boiler House Press, 2017)
 * These. Insuing. Sonnets. with Eric Langley (London: Crater Press, 2018)
 * Arrangements (Bristol: Shearsman Books, 2018)
 * Alphabet Poem: For Kids! with Michael Kindellan and Alison Honey-Woods (London: Prototype, 2020)
 * Home (London: Prototype, 2021)

Awards and accolades

 * National Poetry Competition (2020) -- Poems long listed
 * Forward Prize for poetry (2018) -- Poems Highly Commended
 * Pacuare Nature Poetry Competition, Trinidad and Tobago (2015) -- Runner up
 * Jane Martin Prize for Poetry (2011) -- National Winner
 * The John Kinsella-Tracy Ryan Prize for Poetry (University of Cambridge, 2004) -- Winner
 * The Other Prize (University of Cambridge, 2003) -- Winner for best original play