Maggie Butt

Maggie Butt is a British poet.

Background

Maggie Butt is an English poet and novelist who has published five poetry books, one novel, one pamphlet, one e-book/MP3 and an edited collection of essays. Her latest poetry collection Degrees of Twilight was published in July 2015 by The London Magazine, and her novel House of Dreams(as Maggie Brookes) by Endeavour Press in November 2015. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury and Associate Professor at Middlesex University where she has taught creative writing since 1990. Her poetry has been published in international magazines and been turned into choreography and a mobile phone app.

After completing an English degree, Maggie Butt became a newspaper reporter, moving to BBC TV as a documentary writer, producer and director. She later returned to poetry, completing a PhD in creative writing from Cardiff University.

Maggie Butt's first pamphlet Quintana Roo was published by Acumen Publications in 2003. Her first full collection of poetry, Lipstick, was published in March 2007 by Greenwich Exchange; a launch event was held at Keats House in Hampstead, North London. Her edited collection of essays Story - The Heart of the Matter was also published by Greenwich Exchange in October 2007. An e-book and MP3 "I Am The Sphinx" were published by Snakeskin online poetry journal in 2009. Her collection of short poems "petite" was published by Hearing Eye in 2010, and turned into a dance piece "Ashes" by choreographer Lesley Main.

Ally Pally Prison Camp, published June 2011 by Oversteps Books, charts the use of Alexandra Palace in North London as a 'concentration camp' for civilian enemy aliens during the First World War. It tells the story of the internees through black and white photographs, the paintings of internee George Kenner, extracts from memoirs and letters, and Maggie Butt's own poems.The poems and stories from Ally Pally Prison Camp have been recorded brought alive for visitors to Alexandra Palace in a locative mobile phone app produced by Helen Bendon.

"Sancti Clandestini - Undercover Saints", published November 2012 by Ward-Wood Publications, is a fully illustrated poetry collection, which proposes some alternative, imaginary saints, including the Patron Saints of liars, looters, rank outsiders, compulsive hoarders, old dogs and infidel girls. These undercover Patron Saints are illustrated by the staff and students of Middlesex University's BA Hons Illustration course, from famous and established artists to emerging talents. 'If the proof of a poem is in the richness of response it provokes, the illustrations here are that response made visible - a testimony to the subtle layers in this tender but incisive poetry.' Philip Gross

Degrees of Twilight was published in July 2015. The passage of time is tangible in Maggie's fifth collection. These poems use history, memory, work and travel as lenses to examine the inevitable pains and sharp pleasures at the heart of our transient lives.

The novel, House of Dreams was published under the name Maggie Brookes. It is a quintessentially English kind of magic realism, featuring an Edwardian house, gardening, football and clandestine sex, in a time-shift romance. In the 1990's, Phil is on the brink of the break-up of his family and the loss of his son, his home and his livelihood. In the same house, in 1945, Julia dreads the end of the war and the return of her stranger-husband. Neither can halt the unfolding of events they fear, but the house acts as an uncanny conduit across the years, connecting a man and woman.

Dr Maggie Butt was Chair of the National Association of Writers in Education - (NAWE) from 2007-2012 and founding Principal Editor of the peer reviewed journal Writing in Practice. She is a Middlesex University Teaching Fellow and University Orator. 

Maggie Butt lives in North London and Whitstable. She is married with two grown-up daughters.

Books

• Quintana Roo, Acumen Publications 2003
• Lipstick, Greenwich Exchange 2007
• Story - The Heart of the Matter, Greenwich Exchange 2007
• Petite, Hearing Eye 2010
• Ally Pally Prison Camp, Oversteps Books 2011
• Sancti Clandestini - Undercover Saints , Ward-Wood 2012
• Degrees of Twilight, The London Magazine, 2015
• House of Dreams, Endeavour Press, 2015