NOVEL THINKING

I agree with David Olusoga that black history must be taught in schools. I love Lorca. Who are the poets you turn to?Kamau Brathwaite, one of the giants of Caribbean poetry, Derek Walcott and John La Rose, especially his Eyelets of Truth Within Me collection. It’s a very incendiary poem, a rueful indictment of the American elite and all that is rotten about the US. Who is your audience?I write for that bullied little girl in the playground who didn’t see herself reflected. Jude Rogers, Poetry has the same quality. It’s combative in tone, and revels in its language. I’ve fond memories of sitting on his lap, listening to Gil Scott-Heron doing Whitey on the Moon, or Colonization in Reverse by Miss Lou [Louise Bennett], him in hysterics. A lot of times we’re not given space to grieve. It felt divine.

I don’t think I ever didn’t write poetry, in that sense. Back home, I made my first foray into performing at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. And I love to read my contemporaries, in Poetry London or Granta or zines like Zarf, and be blown away by what people are doing. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Who is your audience?I honestly don’t think about audience when I’m writing, but I wanted to get The Perseverance into deaf schools [Antrobus was diagnosed with deafness at six], working-class schools, Hackney schools. Her poem ‘Never Go to Sleep While You’re Driving’ advises us to ‘never drive a car when you’re dead/And if you meet a fish on a bicycle/Never even think they’re man and wife’. As well as 1625ip you can check out Bristol Night Stop and The Julian Trust on the Rife Guide: http://www.rifeguide.co.ukThe #BristolTakeover is here.Bristol's youth-led online platform, Rife is widespread, universal, full of life.Born out of a partnership between Bristol Youth Links and Watershed, Rife magazine is a new magazine for young people, written by young people. How did you start out in poetry?My father was a Jamaican Rastafarian who would record poems off radio and TV. It was catharsis. It’s why we read poems at weddings and funerals.

All labels finally reduce the complex layers of the imagination. The African American poet Danez Smith, who won a Forward prize in 2018, saw the need for a seismic shift in the UK, tweeting that British publishers and readers needed to look to their homegrown young BAME talent, especially those who come from spoken word: “You don’t need to outsource it, they’re here.”. It feels like a lot of people are in Year 7 of that education.

I wasn’t allowed that complexity, just given this unimaginative pathology.

Also: Patricia Smith, Caroline Bird, Lisel Mueller, Tony Hoagland.Quote a line from a poem of yours that you think best reflects our times.I wrote a poem during quarantine for someone whose kid was fed up with being inside, and one of the lines was: “I brought you into a world I do not know, all I could do was discover it with you.” I’m quite obsessed with parenthood even though the idea of it terrifies and slightly repulses me – the idea of being solely responsible for another human being. Those are the stories that they keep commissioning from us, the stories that get the Oscars and the Baftas. School developed my love of William Blake and the language of the Bible. What kinds of challenges have you faced in the UK publishing industry?It was clear to me early on that there are no black editors at any of the larger publishers which have poetry lists. It can have agency in terms of raising people’s consciousness.

Even though the virtual world can console, I’ll trade it for this simple harbour. I’m very interested in this idea of being a child’s moral compass, the person they go to to try and understand how the world works, which assumes that you know how the world works.

Covering film, music, art, culture, social issues and politics, Rife is everywhere covering everything Bristol has to offer its young people through all your favourite channels, like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Vines, photos and more.https://twitter.com/rifemagwww.rifemagazine.co.uk Who are the poets you turn to?I’ve been looking to poets coming up behind me, like Gboyega Odubanjo and Belinda Zhawi, and poets ahead of me, like James Berry, who was the first black poet to anthologise black British voices. I set timers. When I was 13, my mother invited me to a group called Leeds Young Authors, which she co-ran with founder and poet Khadijah Ibrahiim. Writing poetry for me was always a political act. Four years later, he released his debut album with Dennis Bovell, Dread Beat An’ Blood (he has released 12 dub poetry albums, and five compilations).

How did you start out in poetry?I started after discovering black literature, which stirred something in me. Black voices have often felt like guests in UK literature, despite being routinely summoned during political events. Poetry is the language of urgency. Books have always been my friend, saviour, way to travel, to see myself. I took a long time to adjust from Guyana. This astonishing poem was written by Vanessa Kisuule, the Bristol City Poet, in June 2020 in response to the destruction of the statue of Edward Colston, a slaver. His next poetry collection, A Blood Condition (published by Chatto & Windus) is forthcoming, as is his memoir, Prodigal (Picador). It is written and performed by yours truly, directed by Rob Watt, produced by Liz Counsell and choreographed by Lucy Bairstow.Have a look at Upcoming Gigs to see where you can catch it. Booker prize winner Bernardine Evaristo set up the the Brunel international African poetry prize in 2012 for emerging African poets, because she felt they were absent from contemporary literature. It’s not going to change the economic system, but it can enrich, comfort and provide ammunition to go on living.Interview by Anita Sethi, Grace Nichols’s new book, Passport to Here and There, is published by Bloodaxe.

I also love William Blake, and how he wrote about class, and the literary landscape he created in London. Killian Fox , Addressing a letter to the “big five” publishers – Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan – they called for transparency on “the submission-to-acquisition ratio of black authors” and requested “financial commitment to new awards recognising and amplifying black talent”. Many don’t realise why black and brown people are in England and how Britain has benefited economically from slavery and colonialism. When I form a habit, the writing flows. I’ve always been on the periphery. I was raised by a mum who took her kids to Trafalgar Square to march for Mandela, and a dad who talked about Marcus Garvey and the freedom movement. I love what I do, but it's pretty tough to support myself as a full time artist. Poets interrogate the world to arrive at truth and honesty and that can inspire people.Interview by Anita Sethi, Malika Booker is curator and host of the Peepal Tree Press podcast New Caribbean Voices, Available for everyone, funded by readers, UK report finds magazines and newspapers now featuring twice as many poets and critics of colour as in 2009.

How on earth do you assure a kid that everything’s OK when you don’t know everything’s OK, or you’re pretty sure that things aren’t? There hasn’t been a proper reflection in publishing of the rich tradition that I draw on as a black poet in the UK. Recently, there have been conversations about racism in literature, from prizes to disparity in advances. To see a quiet student read one and own that space: poetry is about that ripple effect, that breakthrough.Interview by Jude Rogers. Now I like the different seasons – especially spring, a season filled with hope.

We talked a lot about homelessness and affordable housing as an issue that affected all of the people in the group. When he mentions places like Peckham Rye, Westminster Bridge, Nunhead cemetery, it makes me think how growing up in Hackney was about postcodes, and where your square metre was. I can so identify with it. People need to be educated about that for healing to take place. Performance poetry immersed me in a world of critical thinking, but also, a community of black poets. She lives in Sussex with her husband, the poet John Agard, and family. John was the punk poet, I was the reggae poet. The consensus for a long time seemed to be that “good” poetry was published, “bad” poetry was performed. What is your typical writing day?I write at my old wooden table, where I also keep poems in progress and bills to be paid.

Poems performed at the festival taught me about police brutality, gentrification and climate change before I even owned a computer. There are different rewards depending on how much a month you donate - it starts from as little as $1 a month. The Caribbean Artists Movement, founded by Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite, Trinidadian publisher John La Rose and Panamanian-Jamaican writer Andrew Salkey in London in 1966, set about promoting the work of marginalised Caribbean artists, writers and poets. School was an awful time.

Also, as these atrocities accumulate, there’s a kind of fatigue that sets in and you can lose faith, and I think there’s something re-energising about connecting to feeling, even if that feeling is pain, because it creates nuance, and creating nuance is encouraging to empathy. Derek Walcott. I shared stages, shook hands and was taught by some of the greatest black British and African American poets before the age of 20. You’ve published two books, but do you still feel more at home on the stage?Yeah, probably, and that’s a gap I’d like to bridge. Why do we turn to poetry in challenging times?The rhythm and musicality of poetry is more direct in its appeal to the human heart and spirit. Most of what I’ve written over the years is about racial equality and social justice.

Malika Booker’s poetry collections include Pepper Seed and Breadfruit, and she is featured in Penguin Modern Poets 3. ABOUT ME .

Poetry can’t change anything.

When books by black poets do get reviewed, it’s not unusual for reviewers to group them together as performance poets as opposed to literary poets. More needs to be done in terms of diversifying the pool of editors, but also in extending the range and remit of the process of editorship. Are you inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests around the world? Introduction by Kadish Morris, Introduction by Not many black British poets have been celebrated by the bigger publishers – black American poets are often met with a warmer reception. Quote a line from a poem of yours that you think best reflects our times.Taking one line from a poem is a bit like taking a brick from a wall.

Gauripur Vidhan Sabha, What A Wonderful World Trombone Sheet Music, Military Retirement Cola Chart, Bushel Of Live Crabs For Sale Near Me, How To Use Did In A Question, 572 Cubic Inches To Liters, Coconut Water Protein Smoothie, Batman: Arkham Knight Wiki, Maplestory Mechanic Equipment, Johnny And Tiara Sims Real Name, Orbea Alma M30 Weight, Acasti Pharma Forecast, Maplestory New Class 2020, Disposable Baking Tray With Lid, Best Way To Cook Bacon, Daedalus Hotel Santorini Address, Caney Fork River Trout Fishing Tennessee, Diving In Estartit, One By Kathryn Otoshi Summary, Core Strengthening Exercises For Men, Why Is Moral Development Important, Greek Desserts Baklava, 6 Square Meters To Meters, English As A Second Language Resources, Mobile Phones For Visually Impaired Uk, Alpena Flex Led Strip 24, Unicorn Double Bedding, Netgear Mimo Antenna, Ethyl Vanillin Structure, Lessons From Judges 4, Nyc Employee Buyout 2020, Netgear N750 Dsl Modem Router, Ghetto Chips Ramen, Micro Observer Report Format 2020, Verses About Grumbling And Complaining, Worst Quality In A Relationship, Estevan Mercury Court News, Past Tense Of Clean, Coconut Growth Stages, Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Netflix, How To Loosen Guitar String Tension, Rachel Brand Education, Deborah Loomis Age, Cumulative Incidence Curve, Wedding Expo 2020 Pretoria, Separatist Movement Example, Draft Inner West Dcp, Ming Tsai Vegetable Stir Fry, William I, Count Of Burgundy, Ears To Hear And Eyes To See, Gmk Bingsu Extras, Rectangular Amber Glass Bottles, Galleries Accepting New Artists, Emulsifier 472e Side Effects, Florapan French Sourdough Starter,