Sally Read was born in Suffolk in 1971. She trained and worked as a psychiatric nurse in London while completing a BA with the Open University, and went on to earn her MA at the University of South Dakota, USA. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2001. Her three poetry collections with Bloodaxe are The Point of Splitting (2005), which was shortlisted for the Jerwood-Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, Broken Sleep (2009) and The Day Hospital (2012). The Poetry Archive released her audio CD Sally Read reading from her poems in 2010.

Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, including Roddy Lumsden’s Identity Parade (Bloodaxe Books, 2010), The Picador Book of Love Poems (2011), and Poems of the Decade (Forward Publishing, 2011). A selected poems in Italian, translated by Andrea Sirotti and Loredana Magazzeni, is nearing completion. She is a member of La Compagnia delle Poete, a theatrical Italian co-operative of poets.

Sally Read is based in Santa Marinella, Rome, and in Bungay, Suffolk. She is currently poet in residence of the Hermitage of the Three Holy Hierarchs.