Her 1984 volume Voices Off explores student life, critical vocabulary, and the finding that “naming is power.” Her most famous poem is probably Atlas, which opens, “There is a kind of love called maintenance.”

In 1987 Fanthorpe went freelance, giving readings around the country and occasionally abroad. In 1994 she was nominated for the post of Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Her nine collections of poems were published by Peterloo Poets. Her Collected Poems was published in 2005. Many of her poems bring in two voices. In her readings the other voice is that of the Bristol academic and teacher R. V. “Rosie” Bailey, Fanthorpe’s life partner of 44 years. The couple co-wrote a collection of poems, From Me To You: love poems, that was illustrated by Nick Wadley and published in 2007 by Enitharmon.

Fanthorpe was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was made CBE in 2001 for services to poetry. In 2003 she received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Among many other awards and honours she was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Bath.

Fanthorpe died of cancer aged 79 on 28 April 2009, in a hospice near her home in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire.