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 Chris Considine, formerly a schoolteacher working in Bedford, now lives in Swaledale, North Yorkshire. Her publications include two pamphlet collections: St Cuthbert and Bystanders (Redbeck Press, 2001) and Swaledale Sketchbook (Smith / Doorstop Books, 2002) which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize in the best first collection category. Her first full collection Learning to Look, was published by Peterloo Poets in 2003. At the beginning of 2004 she was a Hawthornden Fellow.
"Chris Considine's poems are as visual as her title would suggest . . . she is a versatile poet, full of literary references and sometimes heart-wrenching as well as eye-opening. As well as a miscellany . . . there are three ten-poem mini collections in the book. Touched by War illustrates her gift for perfectly turned (and sometimes terrible) endings. More lighthearted in it's seriousness is The Lonelyhearts Column in which a simple mixing of the supplicants' self-descriptions and requirements with the poets acerbic commentaries, projections, and inferences gives us a 'professional widower' who looks for a windowless ensuite 'with room for manoeuvre' and a 'Lone Sailor' who, 'thrown back' by his disillusioned 'first-mate', 'shortly after married / a lady with a boat / and a strong stomach'."
Andrew Stibbs, The North reviewing Learning to Look
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