Pretenders

In Pretenders, her third book of poetry, Kate Potts asks: what is it like, as a daily, lived experience, to feel like a fraud or a fake? And what can ‘the imposter phenomenon’ – a sense that our true abilities and achievements, and other core aspects of our identities, are unreal, undeserved or mistakenly bestowed – tell us about who we are and how we relate to one another?

Through lively and vivid poetic monologues drawn from original interview material, and through original poetry, Pretenders begins to consider individual feelings and experiences of fraudulence, pretence and persona in a wider social and historical context. The varied, hesitant, questing voices build to create a bold and innovative chorus. Pretenders shines a light on our value systems and hierarchies, interrogating notions of ‘realness’, self-assurance, and the self. Kate Potts' Whichever Music was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice in 2008 and shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Her first book-length collection, Pure Hustle, was published by Bloodaxe in 2011, and followed by Feral, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Kate Potts is a poet, academic, mentor and editor. Her second collection, Feral (Bloodaxe Books, 2018) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and a Telegraph poetry book of the month. Her debut pamphlet Whichever Music (tall-lighthouse, 2008) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Her first full-length collection was Pure Hustle (Bloodaxe Books, 2011). Her third, Pretenders, is published by Bloodaxe in 2025.

Kate writes about creative writing and everyday life, including the intersections and tensions between writing and caregiving, in her newsletter Speak Up! On Writing, Failing Better, and Taking up Space. She lives in Stroud, Gloucestershire, with her son.