Selima Hill: The Adventurous Voice of Contemporary British Poetry
Award-Winning Poet Continues to Captivate
For more than forty years, Selima Hill has been doing her own thing. She grew up around painters on farms in England and Wales, and that way of seeing shows up in her poetry. Her work comes in quick bursts—short poems that feel sharp, emotional, and a little unexpected.
Hill’s style is bold and playful. It doesn’t follow rules. That’s why she was awarded the King’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2022.
A New Book, Same Creative Energy
Selima Hill lives in Dorset, and she’s still creating. Her latest collection, A Man, a Woman & a Hippopotamus, is her twenty-second book—and it feels fresh and alive.
The book is made up of hundreds of short poems, grouped into ten loose sections. Together, they explore relationships in all their messy, funny, and tender forms. This is poetry you don’t rush. You let it unfold.
Enjoy her interview along with exclusive content of her speaking to and reading poetry from the newly released book!
Selima Hill’s poems don’t explain themselves; they invite you in, then ask you to stay a while. Each collection feels like a new emotional experiment, testing the edges of form, tenderness, and discomfort with the same restless curiosity that’s defined her work for decades.
Whether you’re stepping into her world for the first time with A Man, a Woman & a Hippopotamus or circling back through earlier collections like Women in Comfortable Shoes or Men Who Feed Pigeons, Hill’s poetry offers endless ways to enter and re-enter. These short, striking pieces stack into something intimate and strange—proof that poetry doesn’t need to shout to leave a mark.
In a culture that scrolls fast and forgets faster, Selima Hill reminds us why poetry still matters: it slows us down, sharpens our attention, and builds meaning quietly, line by line, until suddenly we’re changed
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