Pascale Petit (born 20 December 1953), is a French-born British poet of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. She was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales. She trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art and was a visual artist for the first part of her life. She has travelled widely, particularly in the Peruvian and Venezuelan Amazon and India.

Petit has published one novel and nine poetry collections, four of which were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her seventh collection Mama Amazonica won the Ondaatje Prize in 2018 and the inaugural Laurel Prize for Poetry in 2020. In 2018, Petit was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).

Career

Petit has published one novel My Hummingbird Father (2024) and nine poetry collections: Heart of a Deer (1998), The Zoo Father (2001), The Huntress (2005), The Treekeeper's Tale (2008), What the Water Gave Me: Poems After Frida Kahlo (2010), Fauverie (2014), Mama Amazonica (2017), Tiger Girl (2020) and Beast (2025). She also published a pamphlet of poems The Wounded Deer: Fourteen Poems After Frida Kahlo (2005). For her work in poetry, she has received many awards, including the Cholmondeley Award, four from Arts Council England and three from the Society of Authors.

Petit was shortlisted for the Forward Best Single Poem Prize after publishing "The Strait-Jackets" (from The Zoo Father) and in 2001 she was one of ten poets commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to write a poem for National Poetry Day. The Zoo Father (2001) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Zoo Father (2001), The Huntress (2005), What the Water Gave Me: Poems After Frida Kahlo (2010), and Fauverie (2014) were all shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Three books were selected as "books of the year" in The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement and The Independent. What the Water Gave Me and Tiger Girl were both shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year.

Petit's 2017 collection, Mama Amazonica, won the inaugural Laurel Prize for Poetry 2020, the 2018 Ondaatje Prize, was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and was shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize. Her 2020 collection Tiger Girl was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection.

The Zoo Father is published in a bilingual edition in Mexico and distributed in Spain and Latin America. Fauverie is published by Le Castor Astral in Paris in a bilingual edition. Her books have been translated into Chinese, Serbian, Spanish (in Mexico) and French. She has also translated the poems of a number of contemporary Chinese poets including Yang Lian, Wang Xiaoni and Zhai Yongming. She was Poetry Editor of Poetry London from 1990 to 2005, a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University from 2007 to 2009 and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2011–12. She tutored poetry courses for Tate Modern for nine years, and currently tutors for the Arvon Foundation, the Poetry School and Literature Wales. The Poetry Book Society selected her as one of the 2004 Next Generation Poets, a promotional listing for spotlighting notable young to middle aged British poets. Petit became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.

Reception

The Australian poet Les Murray has praised her work in The Times Literary Supplement, where he wrote: "No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit." Jackie Kay in The Observer wrote: "Pascale's poems are as fresh as paint, and make you look all over again at Frida and her brilliant and tragic life." Ruth Padel, reviewing What the Water Gave Me: Poems After Frida Kahlo in The Guardian wrote: "Petit's collection is not a verse biography, but a hard-hitting, palette-knife evocation of the effect that bus crash had on Kahlo's life and work. 'And this is how I started painting. / Time stretched out its spectrum / and screeched its brakes.' WH Auden, in his elegy for Yeats, tells the Irish poet: 'Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.' Petit's collection, exploring the way trauma hurts an artist into creation, celebrates the rebarbative energy with which Kahlo redeemed pain and transformed it into paint."

Awards, prizes and fellowships

2000 – "The Strait-Jackets" (from The Zoo Father) shortlisted for Forward Best Single Poem Prize 2001 – New London Writers' Award 2001 – Arts Council England Writers' Award 2001 – The Zoo Father Poetry Book Society Recommendation 2001 – The Zoo Father shortlisted for T. S. Eliot Prize 2005 – The Huntress shortlisted for T. S. Eliot Prize 2005 – Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award 2006 – Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award 2006 – Society of Author's Author's Foundation Award 2007–09 – Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University 2010 – What the Water Gave Me shortlisted for T. S. Eliot Prize 2011 – What the Water Gave Me shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2011 – Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at Courtauld Institute of Art 2013 – Manchester Poetry Prize for five poems from Fauverie 2014 – Fauverie shortlisted for T. S. Eliot Prize 2015 – Cholmondeley Award"Past winners of the Cholmondeley Awards". Society of Authors. Accessed 15 March 2018. 2016 – Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award 2017 – Mama Amazonica was Poetry Book Society Choice 2018 – Mama Amazonica won the Ondaatje Prize 2018 – Mama Amazonica shortlisted for Roehampton Poetry Prize 2018 – Literature Matters Award from the Royal Society of Literature 2018 – Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature 2020 – Indian Paradise Flycatcher won Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry 2020 – Mama Amazonica won the inaugural Laurel Prize for Poetry 2020 – Tiger Girl shortlisted for Forward Prize for Best Collection 2021 – Tiger Girl shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year (Poetry) 2025 – Beast was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation

Bibliography

Poetry Collections

Heart of a Deer (Enitharmon, 1998) The Zoo Father (Seren, 2001) El Padre Zoológico/The Zoo Father (El Tucan, Mexico City, 2004) The Huntress (Seren, 2005) The Wounded Deer: Fourteen poems after Frida Kahlo, pamphlet (Smith Doorstop, 2005) The Treekeeper's Tale (Seren, 2008) What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, UK, 2010, Black Lawrence Press, US, 2011) Fauverie (Seren, 2014) Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017) Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe, 2020) My Hummingbird Father, a novel (Salt Publishing, 2024)Pascale Petit | My Hummingbird Father at Salt. Beast (Bloodaxe Books, 2025)Beast at Bloodaxe Books.

List of poems TitleYearFirst publishedReprinted/collectedThe Children's Asylum2003The feast2003Portrait of my mother as Xipe Totec2003The mineral mother2003The orchid hunter2003

Anthologies (edited) Tying the Song – co-editor with Mimi Khalvati (Enitharmon, 2000) Poetry from Art at Tate Modern – editor, pamphlet (Tate Publications, 2010)

Critical studies and reviews of Petit's work Mama Amazonica

Nilanjana Roy"In Praise of Pascale Petit, a poet breaking into new territory", Financial Times, 25 May 2018. ——————— Bibliography notes

References

External links

Profile at Bloodaxe Books Profile at Seren Books Recordings at the Poetry Archive Interview with The Poetry Extension