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‘i will be survived by myself / and the many times that i still have to die’
Editorial by André Naffis-Sahely
André Naffis-Sahely
I first met Gboyega Odubanjo on 29 January 2019 in the Terrace Bar of the Tate Modern. I had just published his poem ‘Confessions in 3/4 Timing’ in the pages of Ambit’s Winter 2018 issue, having been hired by the [...] -
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Category: Interviews
Meena Kandasamy is a poet, novelist, activist, and translator from Chennai, India. Her writing aims to deconstruct trauma and violence, while spotlighting the militant resistance against caste, gender, and ethnic oppressions. She is the author of the poetry collections Touch (2006) and Ms. Militancy (2010), as well as three novels, The Gypsy Goddess (2014), When I Hit You (2017), and Exquisite Cadavers (2019), which have been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize, and the Hindu Lit Prize. Following the release of Kandasamy’s latest book of translation, The Book of Desire (Galley Beggar, 2023), and in the lead-up to her third poetry collection, Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You (forthcoming with Atlantic Books), poet and editor Sohini Basak met with Kandasamy to discuss the politics of translation and the lexicality of love.
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The Body in Bold
Aliyah Begum on three visceral books that consider the body within the context of illness, identity, and desire
Aliyah Begum
The body is a tender space, a negotiation between the soft and the sore. William Gee’s pamphlet Trust Fall navigates this experience of the body through the perspective of chronic illness, and there is an aching sense of guilt throughout [...] -
Business Support Manager
Closed for applications
The Business Support Manager has overall responsibility for the effective and efficient running of the Poetry London office, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, and the operational delivery of the Charity’s objectives, working closely with and supporting the PL Editors. [...] -
Online Exclusive
Averse Miscellany: Palgrave’s Golden Treasury
Camille Ralphs
In her sixth instalment of her exclusive column for Poetry London, Camille Ralphs revisits one of the most influential English-language anthologies ever published, namely Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, and considers the rise and fall in the fortunes of various poets included in its pages, ranging from William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649) to Roy Campbell (1901–1957).
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Online ExclusiveCategory: Interviews
Victoria Chang is the author of The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon Press, 2022), Dear Memory (Milkweed, 2021), and OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), which was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Must-Read Book, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. Her forthcoming book of poems, With My Back to the World, will be published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. In the lead-up to her new collection, Jennifer Wong sat down with her to discuss how innovations of form and lyricism can bridge the layers of identity and grief.
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Category: Interviews
Don Paterson was born in Dundee in 1963. His poetry has won many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Costa Poetry Award, all three Forward Prizes and, on two occasions, the T S Eliot Prize. He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2009. Until recently he was Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews (he is now Professor Emeritus), and was Poetry Editor at Picador Macmillan for twenty-five years. He also works as a jazz musician. Shortly after the launch of his memoir, Toy Fights: A Boyhood (Faber, 2023), he sat down with our Reviews Editor Isabelle Baafi to talk about the influence of music and play on his childhood and poetry.
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Resurrection Dance
Dzifa Benson on two debut collections that reanimate the long-forgotten past
Dzifa Benson
Given that dance expression is so integral to Cane, Corn & Gully – Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa’s hallucinatory debut collection – it’s curious to see that in the short essay-poem ‘Preface’, which itself unconventionally occurs on page 19 of the book, [...] -
Category: Events
Poetry London and Goldsmiths Writers’ Centre present John Agard, Anthony Joseph and Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa.
Caribbean poetry has always been a coffer of urgent, evocative ideas – reshaping form, interrogating language, and crafting aesthetics for imagining new worlds and challenging the Western canon. Whether the vibrant surrealism of Aimé Césaire, the epic mythmaking of Derek Walcott, the gripping dub rhythms of Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, or the archival examinations of M NourbeSe Phillip, Caribbean poets have pioneered some of poetry’s most significant leaps and bounds in the past century. In association with Poetry London, the Writers’ Centre hosted an evening celebrating Caribbean poetry past and present, with performances by three poets – John Agard, Anthony Joseph, and Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa – whose startling innovations represent just three illustrious generations of Caribbean poetry.
Drawing its title from a poem in Éduouard Glissant’s sequence ‘Monomagic’, the event was a magical and thought-provoking night, with the opportunity to hear the poets in conversation after their readings with chair Isabelle Baafi.
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Poetry London in partnership with Tell It Slant poetry bookshop in Glasgow presents a Burns night celebration.
The event features poets David Kinloch, Anita Pati and Alycia Pirmohammed. Digital Roses will close out the event with their mix of experimental art, poetry and music.
David Kinloch was born, brought up and educated in Glasgow. He is the author of six full collections of poetry, mostly published by Carcanet. His most recent book, Greengown: New and Selected Poems (Carcanet) appeared in November, 2022. David helped to set up both the Scottish Writers’ Centre and The Edwin Morgan Trust and is an emeritus professor of poetry at the University of Strathclyde.
Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of Another Way to Split Water, the pamphlets Hinge and Faces that Fled the Wind, and the collaborative essay, Second Memory, which was co-authored with Pratyusha. She is co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics, and she currently teaches at the University of Cambridge. Alycia received an MFA from the University of Oregon and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh.
Anita Pati was born and raised in an English northern coastal town and currently lives in London. Hiding to Nothing, her debut poetry collection, was published in April 2022 by Pavilion Poetry. Her first poetry pamphlet, Dodo Provocateur, won The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition (2019) and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Awards. She has worked at various points in journalism and libraries. Digital Roses are Trudi Veremu and Joanna Ramsay Patel, hyper soul audiovisual sonic witches (not to mention Goldsmiths graduates) making Experimental Art Pop Music.
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Poetry London and Romalyn Ante present: the Poetry London Prizewinners 2022
Judge Romalyn Ante presents the first, second and third prizewinners in online reading.