Fiona Benson (born 1978) is an English poet. Her collections have been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2014, 2019, and 2022. Vertigo and Ghost (2019) won the Forward Prize for Poetry for Best Collection."Fiona Benson wins Forward prize with Greek myth poems for #MeToo age", Guardian 20 October 2019
Biography Benson was born in Wroughton, England. She received her Master of Letters and PhD in English from University of St Andrews in Scotland, where she wrote her dissertation on the Ophelia figure in early modern drama. She lives in Thorverton, Devon with her husband James Meredith and their daughters Isla and Rose.
Benson was a recipient of an Eric Gregory Award in 2006. The award is given by the Society of Authors to British poets under 30. Her work was included in Faber New Poets (2009) and her debut collection, Bright Travellers, was published in 2014 by Cape Poetry.
Benson was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize for her poetry collections Bright Travellers (2014), Vertigo and Ghost (2019), and Ephemeron (2022). The poem "Androgeus" was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. It comes from a long mythic sequence retelling the minotaur myth, which tries to reinstate Pasiphaë, the minotaur’s mother, at the centre of the story. This sequence is included in Ephemeron.
In 2025, Benson published her fourth collection, Midden Witch. The volume deals with witchcraft, herbalism, folk tales, and motherhood, taking particular inspiration from the County Durham witch trials, the influence of which leads to the inclusion of various Durham dialect words in the poems.
Critical assessment Ben Wilkinson, in a review of Bright Travellers for The Guardian, describes Benson as "a poet whose dark imagination mixes solemnity with lyricism, treating the poem as a kind of secular prayer." Themes in Benson's work include "violence and loss, shown most vividly in her accounts of motherhood," which "are paired seamlessly with moments of great tenderness"
Awards and recognition Benson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 2025. Year Title Award Category Result Ref. 2006 Eric Gregory Award Faber New Poets Award 2014 Bright Travellers T. S. Eliot Prize 2015 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2019 Vertigo and Ghost Forward Prizes for Poetry Collection T. S. Eliot Prize 2020The Writers' Prize 2021 "Androgeus" Forward Prizes for Poetry Single Poem 2022 Ephemeron T. S. Eliot Prize 2023The Writers' PrizePoetry
Work Bright Travellers, Cape Poetry, (2014) Vertigo and Ghost, Cape Poetry, (2019) Ariadne, Broken Sleep Books, (2021) Ephemeron, Jonathan Cape, (2022)Poetry Book Society Midden Witch, Cape Poetry (2025)
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