Welcome to the website of UK poet Pascale Petit.
Pascale’s seventh collection Mama Amazonica, published by Bloodaxe in 2017, won the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2018, was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Roehampton Poetry Prize. It is set in a psychiatric ward and the Amazon rainforest, and draws on her travels in the Peruvian Amazon. Pascale’s sixth collection, Fauverie (Seren), was her fourth to be shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and five poems from it won the Manchester Poetry Prize. In 2018 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
‘Mama Amazonica is an unforgettable read – rich with metaphor, the poems explode on the page with the multiple narratives of motherhood, illness, pain, and redemption. All of this set in a rainforest that is both mythic and vividly alive. This is a book that feels almost magical in its unlikeliness, and that for me is what made it a clear winner.’ – Tahmima Anam, on behalf of the judges, RSL Ondaatje Prize
This is a major literary feat, and this a brilliant sequence of poems. It burns in its own supranatural light. – Tim Liardet & Vona Groarke, PBS Bulletin on Mama Amazonica
Kendal Poetry Festival, 7-9.30pm Saturday 8 September 2018 Pascale Petit reading with Nikola Madzirov
Location: Kendal Suite, Castle Green Hotel, Castle Green Ln,
Kendal LA9 6RG
Tickets: £8
Penzance Poetry Parlour, Cornwall, Thursday 27 September Pascale Petit reading with Alyson Hallett, hosted by Katrina Naomi
40 St James Street, Penzance, Cornwall TR18 2BU
Doors open 7.00 for 7.30pm, entry is by a minimum £6 donation
An easy 8 minutes walk from Penzance rail/bus station.
Winchester Poetry Festival 1.45–3pm Saturday 6 October Let Light be Enough Pascale Petit, J O Morgan, Doireann Ni Ghriofa Winchester Discovery Centre, Winchester
Tickets £11.00 Concs £10.00, Students £9.00
Peace Poetry at Birmingham Literature Festival 4pm Saturday 13 October Menna Elfyn, Ian Duhig and Pascale Petit consider Wilfred Owen and read their own peace poems. Introduced by Molly Rosenberg and chaired by Dr Gregory Leadbetter The Studio, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 6 Centenary Square, Birmingham, B1 2EP
RLF Fellows & Members book HERE £8 (£6.40 conc)
Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival 4-5pm Sunday 4 November 2018 Pascale Petit, Mimi Khalvati and Jane Duran co-founders, give a reading to celebrate 20 years of the Poetry School
Pascale will also give two workshops on Saturday 3rd November
Yehuda Amichai FestivalFree Word Centre London 7-8.45pm Monday 12 November
Eva Hoffman, Pascale Petit, Erez Bitton, Yvonne Green, Aviva Dautch and Eve Grubin each read their favourite Amichai poem, then read their own work. Hosted by Amichai’s widow, Hana, and his son David who will read some of Amichai’s poems in the original.
Ticket price £10
Pascale Petit’s Mama Amazonica has won the RSL Ondaatje Prize2018 Pascale Petit’s seventh poetry collection Mama Amazonica has won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, announced on 14 May 2018 at the Travellers Club, London. The prize is an annual award of £10,000 for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, best evoking the spirit of a place.
‘Rich with metaphor, the poems explode on the page with the multiple narratives of motherhood, illness, pain, and redemption. All of this set in a rainforest that is both mythic and vividly alive. This is a book that feels almost magical in its unlikeliness, and that for me is what made it a clear winner,’- Tahmima Anam, on behalf of the judges Daljit Nagra, Eva Hoffman, Tahmima Anam.
Pascale Petit’s Mama Amazonica is shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize 2018 The prize is valued at £5,000 and the winner will be announced in May
Pascale Petit is a RSL Literature Matters Awards winner On 30 November 2018 the Royal Society of Literature awarded her a grant to write the first half of her eighth collection Tiger Girl, a sequence of poems exploring foreignness, in the context of Brexit Britain and her grandmother’s Indian heritage. One of the judges, Imtiaz Dharker, said that ‘a new collection of poems by Pascale Petit is always something to celebrate. To each one she brings images worked in the round, electrified by language to be live and sensuous’.
Pascale Petit is on the judging panel for the 2017 Manchester Poetry Prize for Manchester Metropolitan University, with Adam O’Riordan (chair) and Mona Arshi
who will award £10,000 to the winner for a small portfolio of poems, enter HERE
Pascale Petit is the poetry mentor for the Jerwood/Arvon Mentoring Programme 2017/18, and will mentor four poets for one year, they are: Romalyn Ante, Yvonne Reddick, Alice Hiller and Seraphima Kennedy. More information HERE
Arts Council England has awarded Pascale Petit a Grant from the Arts to finish her seventh collection Mama Amazonica, due from Bloodaxe in September 2017. The grant is to buy writing time and for a research trip in the Peruvian Amazon
Pascale Petit was Chair of the judging panel for the 2015 T S Eliot Prize alongside poets Kei Miller and Ahren Warner
Pascale Petit has a feature Omphalos in the Spring 2015 The Poetry Review
An occasional series in which poets write about a place central to their imaginative world
Fauverie was shortlisted for the 2014 T.S. Eliot Prize.Pascale Petit read for the T.S. Eliot Prize Readings at the Royal Festival Hall, London on 11 January 2015 – Here’s Pascale’s reading:
‘My Father’s Wardrobe’ a poem from Fauverie is The Saturday Poem in the Guardian, Saturday 18 October 2014
‘Caracal’ a poem from Fauverie is Carol Rumens’ Poem of the Week in the Guardian, Monday 29 September 2014
Pascale Petit’s Mama Amazonica has won the 
