Sarah Wardle was born in London in 1969, and studied Classics at Oxford and English at Sussex. She now lives near Rye in East Sussex, teaching at Sussex and Kent universities. She won the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, Poetry Review's New Poet of the Year Award, in 1999. A selection of her poems appeared in Anvil New Poets 3 in 2001. Fields Away is her first collection.

About Fields Away:

"In this propitious debut Sarah Wardle demonstrates an eye for the arresting metaphor, an ear for the memorable phrase. Vigilant, prudent, and surprising, she can open philosophical puzzles or illuminate the commonplace and local, and write of them with accuracy and grace."
—Michael Donaghy

"In this immensely varied collection, Sarah Wardle manages the difficult task of using rhyme without letting it turn comical, wilful, or self-conscious. In her work it is always the poem which impresses, never the poet. Time and again, a miracle of unforced musicality is allowed to fall gracefully to the page, seemingly without effort. To be able to make rhyme disappear into thin air is a great gift to a poet, but a greater one for the reader. Fields Away is a highly auspicious beginning."
—Hugo Williams