Poet - Singer-songwriter - Teacher
Jenny Lewis trained as a painter before reading English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and gaining an M.Phil in Poetry from the University of Glamorgan. She has been a singer-songwriter, an advertising copywriter, a children's author, playwright and screenwriter, a teacher and a civil servant. Lewis currently lives in Oxford, where she teaches poetry at Oxford University.
Her latest poetry collection, Fathom, was published by Carcanet Press in May 2007, and is available from the publisher.
Jenny has recently retired from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and has now moved on to set up a new venture, Oxford Writing and Training, which aims to provide a range of courses for everyone interested in extending their creative writing and written communication skills; she also undertakes freelance creative writing workshops.
Cheltenham Literature Festival
There will be an opportunity to hear Jenny Lewis reading her poetry (alongside Alison Brackenbury and Jane Draycott) at Cheltenham Town Hall on Thursday 14 October; the event is part of this year's Cheltenham Literature Festival. More details and booking information on the Festival web site.
Joining Music with Reason
Jenny has ten poems included in a marvellous new anthology, Joining Music with Reason, edited by the outgoing Oxford Professor of Poetry, Christopher Ricks. She will be taking part in a panel discussion and reading with fellow poets Jane Draycott and Alison Brackenbury at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on Thursday 14th October.
More about Joining Music with Reason
After Gilgamesh
In 2009, Jenny Lewis was commissioned to write a one and a half hour verse play, After Gilgamesh, for the inaugural programme of Pegasus Theatre's new, £7 million Heritage Lottery funded theatre, opening in autumn 2010.
Jenny has worked closely with director Yasmin Sidhwa and dramaturg Rabab Ghazoul to create a structure for the play which allows interplay of ideas and plot between ancient Mesopotamia and modern day Iraq.
Jenny Lewis (third from the left) with members of the After Gilgamesh team
Read more about Gilgamesh, and how this fits in with Jenny's current poetry.
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Last update: 25th August 2010