Selima Hill

Selima Hill Poems

Selima Hill Biography

Selima Hill (born 13 October 1945 in Hampstead) is a British poet. Selima Hill grew up in rural England and Wales. She read Moral Sciences at New Hall, Cambridge University (1965-7). She regularly collaborates with artists and has worked on multimedia projects with the Royal Ballet, Welsh National Opera and BBC Bristol. She is a tutor at the Poetry School in London, and has taught creative writing in hospitals and prisons. Selima Hill won first prize in the 1988 Arvon Foundation/Observer International Poetry Competition for her long poem The Accumulation of Small Acts of Kindness, and her 1997 collection, Violet, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year), the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. Her book of poetry, Bunny (2001), a series of poems about a young girl growing up in the 1950s, won the Whitbread Poetry Award. A selected poems: Gloria, was published in 2008. She was a Fellow at University of Exeter. Selima Hill lives in Lyme Regis. Her most recent book of poetry is People Who Like Meatballs (2012), shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).)

The Best Poem Of Selima Hill

Deep in the Scented House

Deep in the scented house,
a herring merchant
is parting his wife's buttocks
with cold hands;

while she has buried her face
into the pillows
to watch the zebras
passing gently by:

they seem to float
like swollen butterflies,
their rhythmically-cantering bodies
striped and hot.

These are the things one hides,
thinks Feiga-Ita,
calmly and quietly trying
to go to sleep.

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