Rachel Curzon

Rachel Curzon (born 1978) is an English poet from Leeds, and lives in North Yorkshire. In 2007, she won an Eric Gregory Award, and her debut pamphlet was published under the Arts Council-supported Faber New Poets scheme in 2016.

Work Curzon, who after studying English at the University of Oxford has taught at a boys' school in Hampshire, garnered some fame for publication of her debut Faber New Poets 16 with Faber & Faber in 2016. The pamphlet was noted as a debut "with promise and punch" by Guardian. In 2018, she was also awarded a special prize for the best entry in the Winchester Poetry Prize by a Hampshire-based poet. This was for her poem 'Jardin des Tuileries'. the Newcastle-based Mslexia, in the Guardian, and in the Norwich-based The Rialto. She has also published poems in The Bridport Anthology, and Apocalyptic Landscape (Valley Press, 2024), and has read her poetry at a number of events, including the York Festival of Ideas, the Winchester Poetry Festival, and elsewhere.

In 2025, Curzon was one of six New Northern Poets selected for a paid mentoring and development opportunity. Organised by Word Up North in partnership with The University of Leeds Poetry Centre, the New Northern Poets receive 1:1 mentoring from experienced poets from the Centre. In 2026, she was highly commended in the 32nd Bath Flash Fiction Award for her poem 'Hestia / Dionysus', and was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Prize for poem titled 'The Pivot'. The latter was selected by the judges Isabelle Baafi, Dean Browne and Luke Kennard. In July 2026, she was on the shortlist for Dialect Press 's inaugural DIRT Plantable Poetry Competition.

Praise for the pamphlet Curzon was selected as a 2015–16 Faber New Poet from a longlist that consisted of sixty manuscripts. The judging panel for the award included Matthew Hollis, then Faber Poetry Editor, Luke Brown on behalf of Arts Council England, and poets Jackie Kay, Helen Taylor, Jack Underwood and Karen McCarthy Woolf.

Writing for the Guardian in 2016, the poet Sean O'Brien called her a good storyteller, capable of imparting "severe chill". The poet Martin Malone, writing for The Interpreter's House, pointed that the work "keeps the reader on [their] toes" while allowing ample space for speculation. He noted Curzon as exploring "existential angst" and the results of "powerlessness."

Dundee University Review of the Arts''' Jenny Gorrod praised Curzon's poetry for "tak[ing] nothing for granted", pointing at the first poem 'Hydra' as plunging any reader "straight in to an existential crisis", whereas the last poem 'Happy Ending' as "conjur[ing] a bleak image of neglect". She further added that the poet's "voice is urgent and immediate." In another review, poet Alison Brackenbury noted that the poems in the pamphlet "are haunted by music", pointing out that "Curzon's skilful rhythms are seductive" and are capable of "mov[ing] readers from terror into lullaby". Gorrod, in her review, also noted the appearance of "nusual musical instruments" in Curzon's debut pamphlet. 2007: Runner-up, Bridport Prize Competition 2018: BBC Proms Poetry Competition 2018: Winchester Poetry Prize, for 'Jardin des Tuileries' 2023: Highly Commended, 2023 Stanza Poetry Competition, for 'Cusp' 2024: Shortlisted, Oxford Poetry Prize 2025: Second Place, The Pre-Raphaelite Society 2024 Poetry Prize, for 'Winter in Dinan' 2025: First Place, 2025 Poetry London Prize, for 'There are enough poems about birds, and here is another one' 2026: Highly Commended, 32nd Bath Flash Fiction Award, for 'Hestia / Dionysus' 2026: First Prize, The Rialto'' Nature and Place Poetry Competition 2026, for 'Epithalamion with honesty (lunaria annua)' 2026: Shortlisted, DIRT Plantable Poetry Competition