LILY BLACKSELL
Born in London in 1993, Lily Blacksell grew up there and on the Isle of Wight. She studied English with Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham and has an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University, where she was a teaching fellow.
She runs a poetry and music night called Canon Fodder, which she hosts at The Social in London, at Glastonbury Festival and, earlier this summer, at Ventnor Fringe. Lily programmes events at The Conduit in Covent Garden, and has previously worked for the Southbank Centre and the Royal Society of Literature. She has also taught courses for the Poetry School.
Lily has published two pamphlets with ignition press and Rough Trade Books. Her first book-length collection, Life Immediately, was published by Bloodaxe Books in March 2026.
Life Immediately
Funny, restless and brilliantly observant, Life Immediately is Lily Blacksell’s exuberant first full-length poetry collection.
Moving through womanhood, music, love, friendship, the natural world and the comedy and calamity of everyday life, Blacksell takes familiar experiences and turns them delightfully inside out. Pubs, house parties, farmyards and libraries sit alongside geese, hangovers, Madonna and Magwitch in poems alive with wit, surprise and linguistic play.
Behind the humour, however, lies a sharp exploration of the ways we try — and sometimes fail — to communicate with one another. Warm, mischievous and formally inventive, Life Immediately announces a distinctive new poetic voice capable of finding something strange, funny and unexpectedly moving in the ordinary.
Published by Bloodaxe Books in March 2026, the collection has already attracted considerable critical attention and was selected for The Sunday Times’ round-up of the best new poetry of 2026.
Lily will be holding the publishing panel conversation with literary agent Caroline Sheldon and marketing specialist Emma Oulton.
