Colette Bryce is a poet from Derry, Northern Ireland. Her first collection The Heel of Bernadette (2000) received the Aldeburgh Prize and the Strong Award for new Irish poets. She won the UK National Poetry Competition for the title poem of her second book, The Full Indian Rope Trick (2004), which was followed by Self-Portrait in the Dark in 2008. From 2009-2013 she was Poetry Editor for the journal Poetry London. She received the Cholmondeley Award for poetry in 2010.
The Whole & Rain-domed Universe (2014), which draws on her experience of growing up in Derry during the Troubles, received a Christopher Ewart-Biggs Award and was shortlisted for the Forward, Costa, and Roehampton poetry prizes. Selected Poems (2017) was a PBS Special Commendation and winner of the Pigott Poetry Prize 2017.
In recent years, Colette has held writing fellowships at the universities of Newcastle, Manchester, Notre Dame and TCD, and most recently the 2018 Heimbold Chair in Irish Writing at Villanova University, PA. A new collection of poems, The M Pages, was published by Picador in 2020.
Photo credit: Sophie Davidson