Rebecca Watts

Rebecca Watts (born 1983)[1] is a British poet.[2][3] Her first collection of poetry, The Met Office Advises Caution, was published by Carcanet Press in 2016[4][5] and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry's First Collection Poetry Prize in 2017.[6]

Early life

Watts was born in Suffolk.[1] She studied English at Trinity College, Cambridge, and received a Master's degree in English literature from Oxford University.[3]

She works part-time in a library in Cambridge.[3]

Literary career

In 2018 Watts refused to review Hollie Mcnish's poetry collection Plum for P. N. Review, instead writing a polemical article titled "Cult of the Noble Amateur" in which she wrote: "Plum is the product not of a poet but of a personality. I was supposed to be reviewing it, but to do so for a poetry journal would imply that it deserves to be taken seriously as poetry. Besides, I was too distracted by the pathological attitude of its faux-naïve author, and too offended by its editor's exemplary bad faith, to ignore the broader questions it provokes."[7] Although the article began from this point Watts also discussed the work of poets such as Rupi Kaur and Kate Tempest. This article subsequently received coverage in several national news outlets such as The Guardian, which described it as, variously "excoriating", "a stinging critique" and "Giving a fresh meaning to the notion of a poetry slam".[2] Watts was also interviewed on Front Row as a result of this article.[8] Responses to the article also appeared elsewhere – an article written for The Times Literary Supplement stated: "So: Hollie McNish is a terrible poet. Or: Hollie McNish is a wonderful poet. Leave her alone, OK? As ever, the people who care, or pretend to care, about poetry cannot make up their collective mind. This time round, it is an essay in the latest issue of the poetry magazine PN Review, 'The Cult of the Noble Amateur'".[9] McNish commented on her blog: "I just feel like this is an extremely one-sided piece and if it's going to be used to prove how shite and attention-seeking I am, I'd like a space to stand up for myself", before going on to provide a line-by-line response to the essay.[10]

Publications
  • The Met Office Advises Caution. Manchester: Carcanet, 2016. ISBN 978-1-784102-72-2.

Contributions

  • Trinity Poets: An Anthology of Poems by Members of Trinity College, Cambridge from the sixteenth to twenty-first century. Manchester: Carcanet, 2017. Edited by Adrian Poole and Angela Leighton. ISBN 978-1-784103-56-9.[11]

Awards

References
  1. "Rebecca Watts", Carcanet.
  2. Flood, Alison; Cain, Sian (23 January 2018). "Poetry world split over polemic attacking 'amateur' work by 'young female poets'". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  3. "About", Rebecca Watts. Accessed 23 January 2018.
  4. "Best books of 2016: Best books of 2016 – part one". The Guardian. London. 26 November 2016. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  5. Lewis, Ali (2016), "The Poetry School Books of the Year 2016", The Poetry School. Accessed 23 January 2018.
  6. "First Collection Poetry Prize: Shortlist Announced 2017", Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  7. Watts, Rebecca (2018). "The Cult of the Noble Amateur". PN Review 239.
  8. "Paapa Essiedu, Rebecca Watts and Don Paterson, A. J. Finn, Front Row – BBC Radio 4". BBC.
  9. "Still battling over books – Poetry and literary fiction". www.the-tls.co.uk.
  10. "PN Review". holliepoetry.com. 21 January 2018.
  11. "Trinity poets : an anthology of poems by members of Trinity College, Cambridge from the sixteenth to twenty-first century" WorldCat. Accessed 5 March 2018
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