by Vladimir Lucien
I was recently invited to give the annual Independence Lecture in St. Lucia. I was honoured to deliver the talk, entitled "Playin' de Arts": Delinquency, Sovereignty and the St. Lucian Imagination. I am the youngest to have given the lecture, and -- I am told -- it was the first time that the lecture focussed on the arts.
We're pleased to announce that this year’s judging panel for the Forward Prize is chaired by our very own Malika Booker. She is joined on the exciting and diverse panel by poets George Szirtes and Liz Berry, with singer/songwriter Tracey Thorn and Don Share, editor of Poetry Magazine.
Peepal Tree poet and Inscribe graduate Seni Seneviratne is fundraising for refugees and asylum seekers in Sheffield.
Seni joins 49 other poets to take part in the Sheffield Poem-a-thon to raise money for ASSIST who support refused asylum seekers in the city. These asylum seekers are not allowed to work, to register themselves as homeless or to be placed in local authority night shelters. Many become destitute, struggling daily for food, accommodation and clothing.
ASSIST says that:
I was recently chosen for a month-long international writing residency in Hong Kong, which comprised readings, workshops, a trip to a college in mainland China, and the awarding of the title "Honorary Fellow in Writing" by Hong Kong Baptist University. Copies of "Sweetheart" were donated to the HKBU library, and some of my poems were translated into Chinese for the audience at the various events. I'm now back in Paris, helping with a project to translate the books of selected Jamaican writers into other languages.
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