Welcome to the website of poet Pascale Petit. Her ninth collection, Beast, published by Bloodaxe in April 2025, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Beast won the Society of Authors’ Arthur Welton Prize while in progress. Pascale’s eighth collection, Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection and for Wales Book of the Year. Her seventh, Mama Amazonica, won the inaugural Laurel Prize, Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, and was the Poetry Book Society Choice. Four of Pascale’s earlier collections were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Salt published her debut novel My HummingbirdFather in 2024
‘A kaleidoscopic menagerie of creatures, both heavenly and demonic, await the reader in Pascale Petit’s astonishing collection Beast.’ – Georgie Henley, Poetry Wales
‘I am in love with this book! Haunting, grotesque, lush and strangely tender. A stunning debut novel, afraid of nothing and deeply poetic.’ – Warsan Shire on My Hummingbird Father
‘I think this might be her best book so far because of this complexity of a family in crisis against a planet in crisis – she’s very much a poet of the environment.’ – Daljit Nagra, reviewing Tiger Girl on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row
‘Petit is a passionate laureate of the natural world, but alive to the cruelty of human depredation…’ – Aingeal Clare, The Guardian
‘Beautifully sad, the imagery inexhaustible, the sorrow and torment both tempered and sharpened by the relish for language and the ingenuity of the imagination.’ – Simon Armitage on Mama Amazonica
Bloodaxe Launch of Beast (online) 7–8.30pm Tuesday 22 April 2025 Launch reading with Pascale Petit, Vidyan Ravinthiran and Dis Poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah This free Bloodaxe launch event was streamed on YouTube Live and is available by clicking on the image above or here: https://youtube.com/live/5Zy29ZHqwtw.
Cambridge Literary Festival 4pm Thursday 24 April Gwyneth Lewis & Pascale Petit: Two Poets, One Story – at Newnham College, Cambridge Pascale launches her new poetry collection from Bloodaxe, Beast, on publication day along with Gwyneth Lewis launching her new Bloodaxe collection First Rain in Paradise Lucia Windsor room, Newnham College, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DF More HERE
Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival, 5pm – 6pm Saturday 26 April Wild Poems: Pascale Petit launches her new collection, Beast and reads with Fran Lock and Susie Wilson at St George’s, Great George St, Bristol BS1 5RR Book HERE She also leads Into the Wild, a workshop 12 noon – 2pm Saturday 26 April Book HERE
Animals, Beasts and Monsters, tutors Gwyneth Lewis & Pascale Petit, Moniack Mhor, 28 April – 3 May Guest Reader: Jay Griffiths. Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT More details and to book HERE
Quay Words presents Pascale Petit: Beast, Exeter, 6:30 – 7:30 Wed 14 May Literature Works host the Southwest launch of Pascale Petit’s 9th collection, Beast (Bloodaxe, 2025) at Exeter Custom House, Quayside, Exeter, Devon. Beast will be for sale and available for signings, book HERE
Bude Literary Festival 6-7pm Saturday 17 May Pascale Petit launches Beast in Bude, Cornwall The Parkhouse Centre, Ergue-Gaberic Way, Bude, EX23 8LD To book click HERE For the festival homepage click HERE
Launceston Poetry Festival 12 till 1pm Saturday 31 May Pascale launches Beast and reads with Katrina Naomi. More details HERE
Out-Spoken London Thursday 5 June, 7.45pm Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London Pascale will be reading alongside Ange Mlinko and Daisy Lafarge, plus musicians. Book HERE
Pascale Petit Launches Beast at Ware Poets 8-10pm Friday 13 June Southern Maltings arts centre, Kibes Lane, Ware, Hertfordshire, SG12 7BS Book HERE
Red Door Poets, Covent Garden, London, 7:15 – 9.30pm Tuesday 17 June Pascale Petit’s London launch of Beast, at a reading with Richard Scott and Katrina Naomi. Entrance FREE but must be booked in advance HERE Venue: Club for Acts and Actors (CAA), 20 Bedford St, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9HP
Heligan Homecoming Festival, Cornwall, 6pm Saturday 21 June Simon Armitage and Pascale Petit reading at The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Pentewan, St Austell, Cornwall PL26 6EN To book cick HERE
Ledbury Poetry Festival: Beast 8pm Friday 27 June Pascale Petit will be opening the 2025 Ledbury Poetry Festival with a reading from her new collection Beast, and will be hosted by Peter Florence. Burgage Hall, Herefordshire. Also live streamed. Tickets £20. Book online HERE.
How I Write: Pascale Petit, Arvon at Home 19:15–20:00 Wed 2 July Join Daniel Sluman as he interviews award-winning poet and novelist Pascale Petit. Daniel will be asking Pascale about her creative process, her influences, and how she has approached her writing at different stages throughout her long career. Book HERE
The Lyric Self, Arvon course at Totleigh Barton, Devon, Mon 14– Sat 19 July What are the ways into writing the personal in poetry? How can you make it intimate, playful and inventive for the writer and reader? Guest reader is Ella Frears. Book HERE FULLY BOOKED
Poetry Book Society Summer Showcase (YouTube) 7–8pm 22 July Featuring Isabelle Baafi, Fiona Benson, and Pascale Petit Hosted by PBS Selector, Victoria Kennefick PBS Members FREE, £5 for non-members. Book HERE A lively online PBS Summer Showcase to celebrate the launch of the Summer Bulletin
North Cornwall Book Festival Saturday 27 September Katrina Naomi and Pascale Petit reading. Pascale will read from her new poetry collection, Beast, and her debut novel My Hummingbird Father. She will also lead a fiction workshop. ST Endellion, Port Isaac, Cornwall PL29 3TP. Details to be announced in May HERE
Selected Past Events
L is for Liskeard Library: Laureate’s Library Tour, 7-8.30pm Thursday 6 March Pascale Petit was Simon Armitage’s guest reader at Liskeard Library, Barras Street, Liskeard, Cornwall, PL14 6AB More information HERESOLD OUT
BBC Radio 4, The Verb, Sunday 17:10, 3 November 2024 Ian McMillan’s guests were Alan Connor, Isy Suttie, and poets Pascale Petit and Deryn Rees Jones. Pascale chatted to Ian about her debut novel My Hummingbird Father (Salt, 2024) and read a poem from her new poetry collection, Beast. To listen, click HERE
Maison de la Poésie, Paris, launch of bilingual edition Fauverie 7pm Fri 29 Sep Pascale Petit read for the launch of the bilingual edition of her collection Fauverie, translated into French by Valérie Rouzeau, with a preface by Martine de Clercq, published by Le Castor Astral in summer 2023, and for the launch of L’île Rebelle: Anthologie de poésie britannique au tournant du XXI siécle, published by Gallimard Poésie, also in 2023. With Martine De Clercq, Pascale Petit, Stephen Romer & Valérie Rouzeau, Chaired by Jacques Darras
Forward Meet the Poet7 – 7.45pm BST Tuesday 1 September 2020 Pascale Petit, read from Tiger Girl, and was in conversation with Kim Moore, one of the judges for the Forward Prize Best Collection shortlist. Zoom online event. Booking £3 HERE
Launch of Tiger Girl 7pm to 8pm Tuesday 8 September 2020 Pascale Petit launched Tiger Girl, along with Wayne-Holloway Smith and Phoebe Stuckes, who also launched their new poetry collections, Tuesday 8 September 7pm BST. Hosted by editor Neil Astley, this was streamed live through the Bloodaxe Books YouTube channel and can now be viewed. Here is a 15 minute clip of Pascale’s reading:
Pascale Petit’s collection Tiger Girl was shortlisted for Best Collection, in the 2020 Forward Prize for Poetry. Here she reads her poem ‘Jungle Owlet’ during the online awards event in October 2020.
Pascale Petit’s debut novel My Hummingbird Father reviewed in The Guardian on Thursday 24 October 2024 & in Guardian Saturday 26 October 2024 To read the review by Sana Goyal please click HERE ‘In this haunting and hypnotic first novel from the award-winning poet, life imitates art and art imitates life…Written in four parts and short chapters, My Hummingbird Father disentangles the relationship between art and abuse, and is shot through with epistolary elements and diary-like entries. Dominique is determined to “paint what hurts until it’s better. She can change the past with art. What would she do without art?” The novel is a redemption song and an ode to the lost innocence of childhood. Petit’s writing is as vivid as Dominique’s brushstrokes: here, there’s a forest full of fluttering, buzzing, rustling; there, Paris’s rues and boulevards, gargoyles and church bells. The author peels back layers and layers, only to reveal more secrets, losses, traumas.’ – Sana Goyal, The Guardian, 24 October 2024
Pascale Petit’s debut novel My Hummingbird Father to be published by Salt September 2024 Click here for more information
Two poems by Pascale Petit were included in the exhibition It’s Only The End of The Worldheld at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, 16-20 May 2022, during the first International UN Network on Migration Forum. The exhibition pairs each imagined future with a poem from artists, whose works celebrate the beauty of our natural world, mourn its destruction and call out for urgent action. You can also visit a virtual exhibition of the still pictures here: https://migrationnetwork.un.org/Exhibition2022
Pascale’s poems ‘Green Bee-eater’ from Tiger Girl and ‘Rainforest in the Sleep Room’ from Mama Amazonica were featured in videos for the virtual exhibition, with the poems read by Pascale herself.
‘Her Glasses’, a poem from Pascale Petit’s eighth collection Tiger Girl, is displayed on London Undergound for July 2021, more details HERE
Pascale Petit’s eighth collection Tiger Girl is shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year in the poetry category, more details HERE
Pascale Petit is a judge for the 2021 Forward Prizes for Poetry, along with Leontia Flynn, Shivanee Ramlochan, Tristram Fane Saunders and Chair, James Naughtie Click HERE for more details on the Forward website
The Verb: Green Memoir, BBC Radio 3, Friday 13 November 2020, 10pm Pascale Petit was a guest on Radio 3’s The Verb on 13 November. Pascale read ‘Her Tigress Eyes’ and ‘Green Bee-eater’ from her eighth collection Tiger Girl and ‘Kapok’ from her seventh collection Mama Amazonica. Listen here.
Pascale Petit’s seventh collection, Mama Amazonica, has won the inaugural Laurel Prize. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage’s new award that recognises and encourages the resurgence of nature and environmental writing currently taking place in poetry. More information HERE and HERE Tiger Girl was shortlisted for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Collection Pascale Petit‘s eighth collection Tiger Girl, (Bloodaxe, 2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. The judges were Leaf Arbuthnot, Kim Moore, Alexandra Harris, Roger Robinson and David Wheatley. More details HERE
Pascale Petit won the 2020 Keats-Shelley poetry prize with her poem ‘Indian Paradise Flycatcher’, which is now published in her collection Tiger Girl. Read more HERE
Free Thinking, BBC Radio 3, Wednesday 1 May 2019, 10pm Pascale Petit and three other winners of the RSL Ondaatje Prize took part in a special event at the British Library on 16 April 2019 to celebrate 15 years of the Prize. This event was recorded for BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking, and was broadcast on Wednesday 1 May. Pascale talked about how the Amazon rainforest inspired the collection, and read her poem ‘Jaguar Mama’ from Mama Amazonica. Listen here. Also downloadable as a BBC Arts & Ideas podcast.
Pascale Petit was on Radio 3’s The Verb 10pm Friday 19th October 2018 discussing ‘Forests and Metaphor’ and reading from her Ondaatje prizewinning collection Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017)
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 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 was Chair of the judging panel for the 2015 T S Eliot Prize alongside poets Kei Miller and Ahren Warner
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:
