Trouble Came to the Turnip

Bird Caroline

"Following Looking Through Letterboxes", her first collection (2002), Caroline Bird was acclaimed as a vivid and precocious new talent. "Trouble Came to the Turnip" confirms her originality as she strikes out again in new directions, taking nothing for granted. Her poems are ferociously vital, fantastical, sometimes violent, almost always savagely humorous and self-mocking. Caroline Bird's world is inhabited by failed and (less often) successful relationships, by the dizzying crisis of early adulthood, by leprechauns and spells and Miss Pringle's seven lovely daughters waiting to spring out of a cardboard cake. And the turnip.

About the Author

Caroline Bird is an award-winning poet. She won a major Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and was short-listed for the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize in 2001. Her first collection, "Looking Through Letterboxes", was published by Carcanet Press in 2002, when she was just fifteen. She was short-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008 and 2010 for her second and third collections, "Trouble Came To The Turnip", and "Watering Can", and was the youngest writer on the list both times. "Watering Can" achieved a "Poetry Book Society Recommendation". She was one of the five official poets at London Olympics 2012. Her poem, "The Fun Palace" which celebrates the life and work of Joan Littlewood, is now erected on the Olympic Site outside the main stadium. Her fourth poetry collection, "The Hat-stand Union", will be published in 2013. She is also a playwright: her children's musical, "The Trial of Dennis the Menace", was performed at the Southbank Centre in February 2012. This autumn, her bold new version of Euripides's "The Trojan Women" premiered at the Gate Theatre.

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