I am a British poet living in the Peak District. I have published three collections with Picador; the most recent Oak appeared in November 2021 and was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Guardian. The Remedies was published in 2016 and The Floating Man in 2010. The Remedies was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book of the Month in The Observer. The Floating Man won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize. A fourth collection is forthcoming from Picador in June 2026.

My pamphlet let him bring a shrubbe exploring the life and work of the twentieth-century English composer Gerald Finzi was published by The Maker’s Press in 2023. In 2019 I also published a pamphlet, The Violin Forest, with HappenStance Press

My poems have been read on Radios 3 and 4 and I’ve been interviewed on Woman’s Hour. A poem from my first collection appeared as a Poem on the Underground. Other poems have appeared in The Guardian, Poetry Review and Poetry London and in numerous anthologies including the Forward Book of Poetry, She is Fierce and Off the Shelf edited by Carol Ann Duffy.

I also teach poetry, running Poetry Surgeries for the Poetry Society and workshops and masterclasses at universities and literary festivals.

What People Say

"An ambitious, powerful and memorable debut. It's their intelligent and honest insights, always intent on offering a fresh outlook, that lend these quiet poems their tenacity."

- The Guardian

"The Floating Man has a depth of vision rarely found in debut collections. .. A fine technician, Towers responds to her subject matter with a restful directness and sure, light musical forms."

- Poetry Book Society

"Katharine Towers creates a beguiling internal coherence through her use of music. It infuses her work as solid subject and in the rhythm and lilt of her silvery lines."

- The Poetry Review

"There is a beguiling ascetic quality to Katharine Towers' debut collection."

- Financial Times

"There is so much to praise about the writing: clarity, generosity and grace. Katharine Towers writes with a marvellously gentle wit and a metrical intelligence.... Quite how she manages the balancing act between entertainment and something that comes close to a prayer, that catches in your throat, is beyond me." 

- Kate Kellaway in The Observer

"Its fifty or so lyric poems quiver with quiet strength, their stillness part of their occasionally astonishing power."

- The TLS

"Each of these poems shines with a soft, lyrical grace. She writes ... in clear generous language that reaches out towards the reader, embracing and never pushing away."

- Bel Mooney in The Daily Mail

You may be interested …

The books website shepherd.com invited me to recommend some poetry books I love. You can read which books I chose here:

https://shepherd.com/best-books/poetry-that-explores-the-natural-world

My poem 'The Way We Go' was set to music by the composer Laura Stevens.  You can listen here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/1kPKLVKAqlXyvDP0voNEZv

‘The Way We Go’ was also set to music by Nathan James Dearden as part of Helen Charlston’s ‘Isolation Songbook’ project during lockdown. The song is performed on Helen’s CD here: https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/isolation-songbook

I wrote an 'In Front of the Poem' close reading of Denise Riley's poem 'Another Agony in the Garden' for The Poetry Review in June 2019.  You can read it here: https://poetrysociety.org.uk/publications-section/the-poetry-review/in-front-of-the-poem/towers-riley/ 

I also write an occasional blog about Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Waves’ which you can read here: https://katharinetowers.blog/