Victoria Adukwei Bulley

Ghanaian-British poet

Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Born	Essex, England
Education	Royal Holloway, University of London
Occupation	Poet
Notable work	Quiet (2022)
Awards	Folio Prize; John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize

Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a British-born Ghanaian poet.^[1]

Early life and education

Bulley is of Ghanaian heritage, born and brought up in Essex, England. In 2019, she was awarded a Techne^[2] scholarship for doctoral work at Royal Holloway, University of London.^[1]

An alumna of The Complete Works poetry mentoring programme initiated by Bernardine Evaristo, Bulley has held residencies internationally in the US, Brazil, and at the V&A.^[1]

Writing

Bulley's writing has been published in works including Rising Stars: New Young Voices in Poetry (Otter-Barry Books, 2017, ISBN 9781910959374), Ten: Poets of the New Generation (Bloodaxe Books, 2017, ISBN 9781780373829), Granta,^[3] The Guardian,^[4] and The White Review.^[5]

She produced the Mother Tongues intergenerational project, in which poets worked with their mothers to translate their poetry into their mother-tongues.^[6]^[7]

Bulley's 2017 debut pamphlet Girl B was published by Akashic Books and included in the collection New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (ISBN 9781617755408).^[8] Karen McCarthy Woolf called it "a probing, thoughtful, and quietly exhilarating debut".^[9]

Her first book collection, Quiet (2022), was praised in the The Times Literary Supplement as "clever and capacious poems"^[10] and described in The Guardian as "mark[ing] the arrival of a major poetic talent".^[11]

Recognition

Bulley won a 2018 Eric Gregory Award.^[12]

Quiet was shortlisted for the 2022 T. S. Eliot Prize^[13] and won the 2023 Folio Prize for poetry.^[14] Bulley also won the 2023 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize for Quiet.^[15]

Selected publications

Bulley, Victoria Adukwei (2022). Quiet. Faber. ISBN 9780571370337.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Victoria Adukwei Bulley". Poetry Archive. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership". www.techne.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ Bulley, Victoria Adukwei (31 May 2022). "Three Poems". Granta. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ Rumens, Carol (6 June 2022). "Poem of the week: Air by Victoria Adukwei Bulley". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "Victoria Adukwei Bulley". The White Review. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ Bulley, Victoria Adukwei (Autumn 2017). "Report: Seven Thousand Songs". The Poetry Review. 107 (3). Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "Mother Tongues". Lagos International Poetry Festival. 20 October 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Nne)". Akashic Books. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "Girl B – African Poetry Book Fund". africanpoetrybf.unl.edu. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "Quiet by Victoria Adukwei Bulley". TLS. 22 July 2022. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ Dastidar, Rishi (3 June 2022). "The best recent poetry – review roundup". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "Eric Gregory Awards: Past winners: 2018". The Society of Authors. 8 May 2020. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ Shaffi, Sarah (13 October 2022). "TS Eliot prize announces a 'shapeshifting' shortlist". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
^ "De Kretser wins 2023 Folio Prize". Books+Publishing. 28 March 2023. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
^ "Victoria Adukwei Bulley wins 2023 Pollard International Poetry Prize". BookBrunch. 4 May 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2023.