Fiona Benson (poet)

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.^[1]

Fiona Benson
Born	1978 (age 46–47) Wroughton, Wiltshire, England
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of St Andrews
Notable works	Bright Travellers
Notable awards	Forward Prize (2019)
Spouse	James Meredith
Children	2

Biography

Benson was born in Wroughton, England.^[2] 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.^[3] She lives in Thorverton, Devon with her husband James Meredith and their daughters Isla and Rose.^[4]

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.^[5]

Benson was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize for her poetry collections Bright Travellers (2014), Vertigo and Ghost (2019), and Ephemeron (2022).^[6] 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 is included in her latest collection, Ephemeron.^[7]

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."^[8] 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"^[6]

Awards

Year	Title	Award	Category	Result	Ref.
2006	—	Eric Gregory Award	—	Won	[9]
	—	Faber New Poets Award	—	Won	[9]
2014	Bright Travellers	T. S. Eliot Prize	—	Shortlisted
2015		Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize	—	Won	[10]
		Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize	—	Won	[9]
2019	Vertigo and Ghost	Forward Prizes for Poetry	Collection	Won	[1]
		T. S. Eliot Prize	—	Shortlisted
2020		The Writers' Prize	—	Shortlisted
2021	"Androgeus"	Forward Prizes for Poetry	Single Poem	Shortlisted
2022	Ephemeron	T. S. Eliot Prize	—	Shortlisted
2023		The Writers' Prize	Poetry	Shortlisted

Work

• Bright Travellers, Cape Poetry, (2014)^[9]
• Vertigo and Ghost, Cape Poetry, (2019)^[9][1]
• Ariadne, Broken Sleep Books, (2021)
• Ephemeron, Jonathan Cape, (2022)^[11]