Kate Simpson

Kate Simpson

Profile

I am an editor, poet, writer, and critic. I am the former Associate Editor of Aesthetica (2016-2022), and have independently edited for renowned poetry publishers including Faber, Valley Press, and AMBIT, amongst others. I have worked with numerous institutions, publishers, galleries, festivals and organisations, with selected collaborators including Apple, Audible, Bloomsbury, Guardian, Granta, Guggenheim, MIT Press, London Review of Books, Penguin Random House, Poetry Society, Sony, V&A, and Royal Academy. My anthology, Out of Time: Poetry from the Climate Emergency (2021), featured the likes of Pascale Petit, Karen McCarthy Woolf, and Seán Hewitt. It was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation – lauded as the ‘definitive anthology for this decisive decade’ – and was listed as one of the Guardian/Observer's Books of the Year. My writing has been published in the Times Literary Supplement, the Telegraph, Poetry Review, Poetry London, Poetry School, PN Review, and The London Magazine, amongst others.
@kate_elspethMy website

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

Short fiction

  • ‘The Last Demography’, The London Magazine, February/March 2021

Selected reviews and essays

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.’ – Sara Hudston, 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 a ‘polytemporal poetic’ that addresses what geologist Marcia Bjornerud defines as our species-specific ‘chronophobia’ – a form of ‘time denial’.

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 more-than-human subjects – and the cognitive space this employs.

Qualifications

  • MA Creative Writing (Distinction), Newcastle University
  • BA (Hons) English with Creative Writing (First Class), University of Nottingham

Research groups and institutes

  • Environmental Humanities Research Group