Kate Simpson

Profile

I am an award-winning editor, poet, and critic. I am the former Associate Editor of Aesthetica, and have independently edited poetry collections for Faber, Valley Press and New Writing North – including the tenth collection from Laurel Prize-winner Linda France and a seminal anthology of ecopoetry featuring Pascale Petit, Karen McCarthy Woolf, and Sean Héwitt, as well as single editions for the likes of Ambit and Butcher’s Dog. I have written broadly on poetry, fiction, and natural history for the Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, Poetry London, PN Review, and The London Magazine, amongst others. My 2021 anthology, Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency, was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, and was listed as one of the Guardian’s Books of the Year.

@kate_elspeth | www.kateelspethsimpson.com

Publications

Single editions

• Ambit Issue 249: MAGICK (Contributing Editor), February 2023
• Ambit Issue 248: WAR (Contributing Editor), September 2022
• Butcher’s Dog Issue 17 (Co-Editor alongside Jo Clement, Pippa Little and Ella Duffy), June 2022
• Ambit Issue 246 (Contributing Editor), February 2022
• Aesthetica Magazine (Associate Editor, bi-monthly), Issues 70-108, 2016-2022
• Aesthetica Creative Writing Anthology (Associate Editor, annual), 2016-2022

Poetry collections

• Emma Must, The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday (Editor, Valley Press), December 2022
• Linda France, Startling (Editor, Faber & New Writing North), October 2022
• Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency (Editor, Valley Press), July 2021

Selected articles and literary criticism

• The Poetry Review: Mutually Inclusive (on Jorie Graham, Brenda Shaughnessy and Stephen Watts), Spring Issue 2023
• Times Literary Supplement: Beasts and super-beasts (on Joanna Bagniewska’s The Modern Bestiary), February 2023
• Times Literary Supplement: An Intimate Olfactory Exploration of Trees (on David George Haskell’s Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree), January 2023
• Times Literary Supplement: Water, not Commodity (on Erica Gies, Water Always Wins), September 2022
• Times Literary Supplement: Wasps for Wasps’ Sake (on Seirian Sumner, Endless Forms), June 2022 
• Poetry London: To Be Human (on Emily Berry, Polly Atkin and Fiona Benson), Issue 102, June 2022 
• Times Literary Supplement: History is Gunk (on Susanne Wedlech, Slime: A Natural History), February 2022 
• The London Magazine: A Series of Little Deaths (on Penelope Lively), February / March 2022 
• The Poetry Review: Positive / Negative Space (on Gail McConnell, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe & Threa Almontaser), Winter 2021
• The London Magazine: Salt, Sugar, Sweat: The Aesthetics of Danger, On Lucy Caldwell, Natsuko Imamura & Amber Medland’s, August / September 2021
• The Poetry Review: Subversion and Satire, On Luke Kennard & Julian Stannard, Summer Issue 2021 
• Poetry London: State of Flux (on Annie Freud, Claudine Toutoungi & Phoebe Stuckes), Issue 100, 2021
• Poetry School: On Ruth Padel’s Beethoven Variations, May 2021 
• Poetry School: On Simon Armitage’s Magnetic Field, March 2021 
• The Poetry Review: Conditions of Survival (on Ella Frears & Daisy Lafarge), Winter Issue 2020 
• The London Magazine: The Entanglements of Consumerism (on Inua Ellams, Tim Cresswell & Abi Palmer), October / November 2020 
• The London Magazine: Interview, Kirsty Logan on Why We Return to Horror, October 2020
• The London Magazine: Review, Andrés Barba, Luminous Republic & Such Small Hands, May 2020
• The London Magazine: Review, Peter Stamm, The Sweet Indifference of the World, February 2020

Awards and commendations

• The Guardian, Best Poetry Books of 2021, December 2021 (for Out of Time)
• Poetry Book Society Special Commendation, Autumn 2021 (for Out of Time)

Endorsements and reviews for Out of Time

‘Kate Simpson has not only collected some of the most exciting voices in ecopoetry and brought them together in this extraordinary anthology, but she has written an essay which articulates the glorious activism burning through every line in these poems. Here you will find transcendent articulations of limitless miracles of nature and conversely damning records of humanity's greatest shame; the systematic and rapid destruction of our very life support system – planet earth. From the seas to the skies, from gutters to treetops these poems constitute a hugely important record of the most critical challenge faced by us all – that of climate crisis.’ – Sally Carruthers, Executive Director Poetry School

‘There are so many exciting poems in this anthology that are inspiring and built on the good poetics of fightback: of the upbeat mood to make more of life, to be kind, to be outward-looking, and to be worthy of this home on our planet. A transformative read.’ – Daljit Nagra, Chair of the Royal Society of Literature

‘Poetry from the Climate Emergency challenges, inspires, and empowers us to change our world.’ – Professor Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science at University College London, and author of ‘How to Save Our Planet: The Facts’ (Penguin 2021)    

‘The power of these poems is in their collective, eclectic response.’ – Andrew McMillan, Poetry Book Society Selector, Autumn 2021

‘The best eco-themed anthology to emerge this year.’ – Rishi Dastidar, Guardian, December 2021

‘The ardency and urgency of this selection set it apart from much of what is published about the living world.’ – Times Literary Supplement, February 2022

Research interests

I am currently researching the field of Extinction Studies, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. My practice-led project sits between the School of English and the School of Earth and Environment, and focuses on producing a new creative methodology of ‘polytemporal poetics’ that addresses what geologist Marcia Bjornerud defines as our ‘temporal bias’ towards Earth’s larger, palimpsestic narrative. My research considers the role that poetry can play in changing how deep time is interpreted, experienced, and understood, utilising the economy and spatial semantic reasoning of the page. I am implicitly interested in bridging the respective roles of the ‘poet’ and the ‘palaeontologist’, examining both disciplines and their expansive – yet limited – roles in excavating time to build a larger, semiotic framework. I am also interested in the long poem – texts that offer a sustained attention to the more-than-human beyond anthropocentric time-scales – and the cognitive space this employs.

Qualifications

• MA Creative Writing
• BA (Hons) English with Creative Writing

Research groups and institutes

• Environmental Humanities Research Group