Maria Isakova Bennett

“This is the sort of poetry that gives poetry a good name”
  – John Glenday

“Brilliant movement within the poems with fascinating use of the white space of the page.”

– Sarah Howe, Fiona Sampson, Moniza Alvi, Judges of Rebecca Swift Women Poets Prize on shortlisting

Maria has been published across the UK and Ireland. She is the winner of the Poetry Society’s 2020 Peggy Poole Award and was long-listed in the National Poetry Competitions in 2019 and 2020. In 2017, she was the recipient of a Northern Writers' Award for poetry, and in November 2018 was Poet and Artist-in-Residence at Poetry in Aldeburgh. Maria placed second in the 2019 Winchester Poetry Prize. She has three pamphlets: … an ache in each welcoming kiss (Maytree Press, 2019), All of the Spaces (Eyewear, 2018) and Caveat (Poetry Bus, 2016).

In August 2017 she launched the handmade poetry journal Coast to Coast to Coast, publishing work by over 120 writers in more than 1200 hand-stitched journals. Through the initiative, she has launched individual poet journals, led collaborative cross-disciplinary projects, and has hosted readings at sites of architectural and cultural interest.

Following post-graduate studies in Art History and Fine Art, she was awarded an MA (distinction) in Creative Writing in 2012.

Maria is writer in residence for Mersey Care, NHS Trust and works as a tutor for charities across Merseyside.

“Maria Isakova Bennett’s poems are otherworldly. They take you into a dream-space that is rich with emotion – into landscapes that are so close you can taste them. But there is always an agreeable tease – nothing is settled, everything unravels, there is always more to the story.”

  – Bill Greenwell

“... elevates the quiet contemplation of a series of artworks into something akin to a religious experience.”

– Noel Williams, Reviews Editor, Orbis

“This intensely lyrical sequence of poems shapes sculpture into words – vivid, accessible, compelling, but most of all humane.”

– John Glenday on All of the Spaces