Dorothy Nimmo's poems

Dorothy Nimmo was born in Manchester, educated in York and Cambridge and worked as an actress in London. She spent the 1960s in Geneva but came back to England in 1970 to Peterborough where she brought up four children, gardened and kept goats.

After her divorce in 1980 she moved to Lancaster where she joined her first creative writing course. In 1989 she took an MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University and then spent nine months at Pendle Hill, a Quaker Centre for Study and Contemplation in Pennsylvania. She returned to live in Gloucester where she was caretaker of the Friends Meeting House and cook at a vegetarian restuarant. She now lives in Yorkshire and is caretaker of the Friends Meeting House in Settle.

Dorothy Nimmo's poems and short stories have been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. She has won prizes at the Cardiff, Bridport, South Manchester and Prema competitions. She was a guest poet at the Aldeburgh Festival in November 1995. In the spring of 1996 she was given a Cholmondeley Award of 2000 pounds for her poetry. Her book The Children's Game (Smith/Doorstop, 1998) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her latest book is The Wigbox: New & Selected Poems (Smith/Doorstop, 2000).

Dorothy Nimmo died on 24 May 2001.

Here is the first set of poems she kindly made available.

Here is the second set of poems she provided.

Here are two more recent poems.