Books
Chapbooks: The Hitcher (Rialto 2012); R x (sine wave peak 2013); and Ormonde (Hercules Editions 2014) and The Neighbourhood (Outspoken Press, 2019).
The Kids (Bloodaxe 2021)
The Kids, winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award
& shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2021
Bloodaxe 2021
‘The poems in The Kids fizz and chat with all the vitality and longing of the classes they conjure. Funny, moving, sometimes painful and always questioning, they capture teachers and their students learning life from each other in profound and unexpected ways. A joy to read.’ – Liz Berry
‘These sequences of stories are a refreshing update to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and To Sir with Love. Each of Lowe’s sonnets is a blackboard chalked with the tales of earnest teachers, of cheeky and lovable students, of being mentored to become a poet and of motherhood and learning to instruct again. Lowe makes the sonnet exciting for our age through its urgent, its compassionate, its wonderfully humorous address of the personal and the social.’ – Daljit Nagra
Chan (Bloodaxe 2016)
‘Hannah Lowe is one of our very best young poets. Her new book Chan is every bit as good as her debut collection Chick… It is a book about memory and the construction of memories, unreliable memories, family memories, invented memories and make-believe, along with the brilliant If You Believe poems.’ – Andy Croft, Morning Star
‘While life at the border is not always easy, Lowe celebrates the importance of cultural diversity in her poems… by demonstrating that diversity is natural to the development of all societies, and indeed, a beautiful thing. As a woman with a diverse heritage herself, this message occupies a crucial role in the undercurrent of Lowe’s poetry, specifically in the face of the world’s current, culturally protectionist attitudes. Indeed, what is most compelling about Chan is that through the personal Lowe’s work reaches the universal by inviting us ‘to look both ways’. – Amanda Merritt, The London Magazine
Long Time, No See (Periscope, 2015)
featured as Radio 4’s Book of the Week
Hannah Lowe s father Chick , a half-Chinese, half-black Jamaican immigrant, worked long hours at night to support his family except Chick was no ordinary working man. A legendary gambler, he would vanish into the shadows of East London to win at cards or dice, returning in daylight to greet the daughter whose love and respect he courted. In this poignant memoir, Lowe calls forth the unstable world of card sharps, confidence men and small-time criminals that eventually took its toll on Chick. She also evokes her father s Jamaica, where he learned his formidable skills, and her own coming of age in a changing Britain. Long Time No See speaks eloquently of love and its absence, regret and compassion, and the struggle to know oneself.
“Eloquent, richly textured and brimming with feeling and unobtrusive sagacity, this is a compelling book—crafted with a lightness of touch by a talented wordsmith….which continues to resonate long after you have finished the last page. A highly recommended read.” Sonya Barker, The London Literary Journal.
Chick (Bloodaxe, 2013)
won the Michael Murphy Memorial Award for Best First Poetry Collection
‘A thrilling sequence of poems about the poet’s relationship to her Chinese-Jamaican gambling father which is funny, wise and affectionate.’ – Daljit Nagra, Big Issue (London), choosing Chick as one of his Top 5 Poetry Books
‘Here is a poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic. These are poems springing from the page with vitality, rue and insight. Her elegies are restrained and devastating. An extraordinary debut’ – Penelope Shuttle.