The latest episode of the Royal Society of Literature's Only Connect is from Desiree Reynolds, who has chosen the recording of the 2019 event Black in the Union Jack? with Paul Gilroy, Derek Owusu and Jeffrey Boakye reflecting on Black British experience past and present. Their discussion is chaired by award-winning publisher and founder of Dialogue Books, Sharmaine Lovegrove.
We delighted to see that A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson and Road Trip by Marvin Thompson have both been selected for inclusion in National Poetry Day’s recommended poetry books for 2020.
You can read poems from the book for free online, or check out the full list of 40 National Poetry Day recommendations.
There is something amazing about being a black writer when you begin to make yourself visible. It is a power. Writing A Portable Paradise, I remember thinking: “I need to make black people visible in literature because my son needs to know that his stories are worth something. His life is worth something.” So, thank you for running Octavia and making brown and black people visible. I know it is tough but it only takes a few cultural agitators to change the landscape of the world. Young people tell me A Portable Paradise is giving them permission to write.
Author photo credit: Marion Nelson and Allen Sherman
Peepal Tree Press invites poets to write a canticle and win some books!
Saint Lucian poet John Robert Lee has created his version of the canticle.
From the NGC Bocas Lit Fest:
How we remember: reflections on the 175th anniversary of Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad and Tobago
The arrival of 227 indentured Indian immigrants aboard the Fatal Razack on 30 May, 1845, was a defining event in the history of Trinidad and Tobago. As we commemorate the 175th anniversary of Indian Arrival, the NGC Bocas Lit Fest brings together a panel of writers to reflect on how indentureship and the Indo-Caribbean experience have been documented and imagined in our contemporary literature.
In January of this year, the poet Roger Robinson, whom I’ve known since we were on the same poetry circuit in the nineties, won the UK’s most prestigious poetry prize, the T S Eliot Award for Poetry for his latest poetry collection, A Portable Paradise. He is the first black British person to win it, the second black man to win it, and the fourth person of colour to win the Prize since its inception in 1993.
The University of York is inviting you to take a break - peaceful, or quietly chaotic – from the ‘surround sound’ of whatever you’re caught up in, and reflect with some of the authors who may help us reconnect with that vital silence through poetry and other writing. Silence is a vital part of our humanity, yet it goes missing too often, especially in such a time as this.
On Talking Ink Podcast at Cardiff's Seren Poetry Festival, Marvin Thompson reads from Road Trip and talks about different ways to enjoy poetry, what it means to be Black and British, and the ways in which home isn't always a safe place.
Talking Ink Podcast features stories, poems and ways of thinking, and is created by Lucy Smith. It spotlights original music from local artists, in association with Seren Books, Wales’ leading independent publisher.
ANDRE CANNIERE
Ghost Days
(Whirlwind Recordings)
Andre Canniere (t, flhn), Tori Freestone (ts), Rick Simpson (p), (ky), Tom Farmer (b), Andrew Bain (d) and Brigitte Beraha (v). Rec. December 2018
This may be Canniere’s music, but it’s unremittingly a meeting of spirits. Canniere has set six poems by the (very different) writers Malika Booker and Rebecca Lynch in varying musical nests, from avant pop to free vocalese and even the odd march.
