welcome

Allison McVety’s poems have appeared in The Guardian, Poetry London, Poetry Review, The Huffington Post, The Spectator and The Times, have been broadcast on BBC radio and anthologised in Forward Poems of the Decade 2002-2011 and The Best British Poetry 2013.

The Night Trotsky Came to Stay (smith|doorstop) was shortlisted for the Forward First Collection Prize. A second, Miming Happiness, featuring work shortlisted for the Manchester Metropolitan Poetry Prize, was published in 2010 and a third, Lighthouses in 2014.

Allison has read at StAnza, Ledbury and Aldeburgh Poetry Festivals and at Cheltenham Literature Festival and was recorded for Poetry International 2014. In 2011 she won the National Poetry Competition.

"hymns translating to glory the everyday struggles of ordinary people" tribune

"In three stanzas, this poem captures not just the movement of time (that so obsessed Woolf) but also the passing of time in the poet’s life, the journey from the girl in her exams, to the motherless woman at the end. It is a tour de force. It takes huge leaps and yet shimmers with small details: Minta’s missing brooch." jackie kay

"through her three books, McVety has developed a transformative vision of everyday life." poetry london