Pascale Petit’s latest collection is What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Seren, 2010), which is shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize and a book of the year in The Observer. She trained at the Royal College of Art and spent the first part of her life as a visual artist before deciding to concentrate on poetry. Since then she has published five collections, two others of which, The Huntress and The Zoo Father, were also shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and were books of the year in the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent. In 2004 the Poetry Book Society selected her as one of the Next Generation Poets. Petit is widely travelled, including in Mexico, the Venezuelan Amazon, China and Nepal. She has worked as editor for Poetry London, was a co-founding tutor of The Poetry School and was the Royal Literary Fellow at Middlesex 2007–9. She currently tutors for Arvon, Ty Newydd, The Poetry School, Chateau Ventenac and Tate Modern.