Rachel Pantechnicon was born in Essex in 1965. Her early life was unremarkable, following the course so frequently followed by those destined to become writers. There were the Best Essay prizes – including one for a clever piece in which she took an ordinary park bench and imagined it to have human feelings. In another, she took an ordinary human, and imagined it to have a park bench's feelings.
At an early age, her mother bought her a copy of Collins Rhyming Dictionary and used to test her on it every day. "Rachel," she used to say, "words ending in -uzzery, please". Many and various are the starting-points of great poets.
In between boarding-school and secretarial art college, Rachel enjoyed a brief but well-documented stint as the life-model for the covers of historical romantic-fiction books, such as Constance Heaven's "Blacking the Grate - Looking Great" and Joanna Trollope's "Spot the Shawl". She has subsequently held down a long-term job as a manual typist at the Green Shield Stamps factory in SW London - as documented in that poem she only ever read once (at Southend) and no-one liked. Rachel started reading her poems in public in May 1997, at an Adult Learners' day at Centre Court, Wimbledon (the shopping precinct as opposed to the hallowed sportsground). Much of that first performance was drowned-out by the escalators, but keen-eared observers said that there was evidently some talent in there somewhere. She has never looked back.
Rachel has an ongoing sideline as a writer-cum-illustrator of children's books, delighting youngsters worldwide with the adventures of Cheesegrater Leg-Iron Lion, the Three Coalscuttles, and the stoical young maidservant Michelle. More are planned.
Rachel has now read her verse all over the place, including a Chinese men-only club in Trafalgar Square, and a place in the Lake District where she shared the bill with a human-sized dancing crow. Rachel herself, however, eschews cheap sensation, and everyone agrees that it's her poems that are important - the words, the imagery, the rhythms (the latter being inspired by the treadling movements of her cat Harold). Not that that means you can't look good and need to look all dishevelled like Carol Ann Duffy.
The exciting thing is that, at the tender age of 41,Rachel's story is only just beginning. She and Harold live in Motspur Park. But she can't give the exact address in case people come and sleep in the garden again. She is currently working on a dialect-study of the word "treadle" (as in the thing that cats do).
At an early age, her mother bought her a copy of Collins Rhyming Dictionary and used to test her on it every day. "Rachel," she used to say, "words ending in -uzzery, please". Many and various are the starting-points of great poets.
In between boarding-school and secretarial art college, Rachel enjoyed a brief but well-documented stint as the life-model for the covers of historical romantic-fiction books, such as Constance Heaven's "Blacking the Grate - Looking Great" and Joanna Trollope's "Spot the Shawl". She has subsequently held down a long-term job as a manual typist at the Green Shield Stamps factory in SW London - as documented in that poem she only ever read once (at Southend) and no-one liked. Rachel started reading her poems in public in May 1997, at an Adult Learners' day at Centre Court, Wimbledon (the shopping precinct as opposed to the hallowed sportsground). Much of that first performance was drowned-out by the escalators, but keen-eared observers said that there was evidently some talent in there somewhere. She has never looked back.
Rachel has an ongoing sideline as a writer-cum-illustrator of children's books, delighting youngsters worldwide with the adventures of Cheesegrater Leg-Iron Lion, the Three Coalscuttles, and the stoical young maidservant Michelle. More are planned.
Rachel has now read her verse all over the place, including a Chinese men-only club in Trafalgar Square, and a place in the Lake District where she shared the bill with a human-sized dancing crow. Rachel herself, however, eschews cheap sensation, and everyone agrees that it's her poems that are important - the words, the imagery, the rhythms (the latter being inspired by the treadling movements of her cat Harold). Not that that means you can't look good and need to look all dishevelled like Carol Ann Duffy.
The exciting thing is that, at the tender age of 41,Rachel's story is only just beginning. She and Harold live in Motspur Park. But she can't give the exact address in case people come and sleep in the garden again. She is currently working on a dialect-study of the word "treadle" (as in the thing that cats do).