Penelope Shuttle (Penelope Diane Shuttle) Biography

British poet and novelist, born in Staines, Middlesex, where she was educated at Matthew Arnold County Secondary School. She is the wife of Peter Redgrove, with whom she has collaborated on several works, among them the novel The Terrors of Dr Treviles (1974); a study of the cultural significances of menstruation entitled The Wise Wound (1978); and Alchemy for Women (1995). Her collections include The Orchard Upstairs (1980), The Child-Stealer (1983), The Lion from Rio (1986), Adventures with My Horse (1988), and Taxing the Rain (1992). Her statement that ‘I am writing to repair the degradation of women's experience’ indicates the feminist orientation of much of her work, which explores the erotic, maternal, social, and spiritual aspects of womanhood. The disciplined energies of her free verse cover a range of styles from the extravagantly lyrical to the domestically factual. Her novels include the widely acclaimed Wailing Monkey Embracing a Tree (1973) and The Mirror of the Giant (1980), which have in common with her verse their highly imaginative vividness of imagery.