Wha'ppen?

Founding editor Jeremy Poynting is off to Jamaica as an invitee of the Calabash Festival at Treasure Beach. He’s scheduled to be taking part in a conversation, a “Reasoning” session with the great LKJ (whose new book Time Come: Selected Prose) Jeremy is currently reading with great pleasure) and with his long-time friend and our associate poetry editor, Kwame Dawes, whose new collection of poetry, Sturge Town, is due out in October, and then next year by the major US poetry publisher Norton.

Introduction made at the launch at the Bocas Litfest on Sunday 30^th April. by Jeremy Poynting

(A note: this presentation was given to a predominantly Trinidadian audience, hence its mostly Trinidadian points of reference and the fact the festival was celebrating the 100^th anniversary of Samuel Selvon's birth. The diaries, of course, cover writers from all over the Anglophone Caribbean. It is also a personal piece and does not represent Peepal Tree's public views on the monarchy.)

We are pleased to announce that Ira Mathur has won the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-fiction, on an all-Trinbagonian honours list including Anthony Joseph and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo.

Ira's memoir Love the Dark Days scooped the prize for non-fiction, while Anthony Joseph won the poetry prize for Sonnets for Albert (Bloomsbury) and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo won the fiction prize for When We Were Birds (Hamish Hamilton/Doubleday).

We've got a brand new essay over in our Discover section, where Jeremy Poynting writes on the topic of "Caribbean Gothic".

by Jeremy Poynting

Ira Mathur has been longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for her memoir, Love the Dark Days.

Gordon Rohlehr 20 February 1942 – 29 January 2023

Friday 16th December would have been Guyanese writer Edgar Mittelholzer’s 113rd birthday. To celebrate, Chapter & Verse published an homage to the seminal writer on their YouTube channel.

We invite you to submit previously unpublished poetry or prose which creatively responds to David Oluwale’s story and its relevance today. You can find out about his story here.

Your submission can respond to David’s life or death or take it as a starting point to explore any issues that his story touches upon, such as the city of Leeds, marginalisation, racial justice, mental ill-health, rough-sleeping, exclusion, resistance and hope, reinterpreted as you see fit.