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		<title>Patience Agbabi</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/patience-agbabi/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jul 2017 09:00:41 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Patience Agbabi]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=3366</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Poet Patience Agbabi FRSL was born ‘waxing lyrical’ in 1965 in London to Nigerian parents. She was fostered from an early age by white parents in North Wales.<br />
<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/patience-agbabi/">Profile and resources</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/patience-agbabi/">Patience Agbabi</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<h1 class="wp-block-heading">Patience Agbabi</h1>


<div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zJIHXkltvms?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>
<h2>Biography</h2>
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<p>Poet Patience Agbabi <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_of_Literature">FRSL</a> was born ‘<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z530jow2DA">waxing lyrical</a>’ in 1965 in London to Nigerian parents. She was fostered from an early age by white parents, spending her adolescence in North Wales. She read English at Pembroke College, Oxford and later completed an MA in Creative Writing, the Arts and Education at the University of Sussex in 2002. From the mid-1990s Agbabi began performing poetry in clubs across London and in 1995 her first collection <em>R.A.W.</em> was published. It was awarded an Excelle Literary Award in 1997. She went on to publish four more stand-alone collections (as of 2019) and she features in several anthologies, including <em>Best British Poetry 2012</em> and <em>Refugee Tales</em>. In 2017 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.</p>
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<blockquote>
[Patience Agbabi] is one of the most dynamic black British performance poets [&#8230;] and perhaps the most radical.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—<a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/patience-agbabi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jules Smith</a></p>
</blockquote>
</div><br></div>
<h2>Writing</h2>
<div id="attachment_3377" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/diran-adebayo/diran-adebayo/" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-3188 noreferrer"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3377" data-attachment-id="3377" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/patience-agbabi/patience-agbabi-2/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi.jpg" data-orig-size="1080,1042" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="patience agbabi" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;patience agbabi&lt;/p&gt;
" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;patience agbabi&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi-300x289.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi-1024x988.jpg" class="wp-image-3377 size-medium" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi-300x289.jpg" alt="Patience Agbabi" width="300" height="289" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi-300x289.jpg 300w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi-768x741.jpg 768w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi-1024x988.jpg 1024w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/patience-agbabi.jpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3377" class="wp-caption-text">Patience Agbabi (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>) via Wikimedia Commons</p></div>
<p>Patience Agbabi came to prominence in the spoken word scene in the late 1990s. This followed her acclaimed debut collection <em>R.A.W.</em>, her collaboration with Adeola Agbebiyi and Dorothea Smart on <em>FO(U)R WOMEN, </em>and the success of <a href="http://www.speechpainter.com/portfolio/atomic-lip/">Atomic Lip</a>, touted as poetry’s first pop group. Mixing rap with a poetic style influenced by writers and performers as diverse as Sylvia Plath, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Public Enemy, Agbabi’s work is inflected by what she terms a ‘bicultural’ upbringing and outlook.</p>
<p>In the introduction to Agbabi’s debut collection <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Raw-Gecko-Press-Agbabi-Patience/dp/0952406713" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>R.A.W.</em></a>, Merle Collins describes her work as ‘poetry in the tradition of social commentary, informed by techniques of the oral performance mode,’ (9) reminding the reader that performance is Agbabi’s primary communication method. Yet she is equally adept at writing poems meant specifically to be read rather than heard. The poem ‘One Hell of a Storm’, for example, relies on visual structure to convey its meaning, evoking the rush of turbulent weather within a narrative of feminist resistance. Her 2000 collection <em>Transformatrix</em> brought Agbabi particular renown and she undertook writing residencies at institutions as diverse as Eton College, Oxford Brookes University, and ‘Flamin’ Eight’ tattoo parlour.</p>
<p>Her third collection, <em>Bloodshot Monochrome</em> (2008), deals most explicitly with themes of sexuality and race: poems such as ‘Comedown,’ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/28/poem-of-the-week-skins-by-patience-agbabi">‘Skins’</a>&nbsp;and ‘Eat Me’ evoke the transnational anxieties of marginalisation and uncertain belonging in one’s own body and in social space. Literary critic Manuela Coppola notes that ‘as she steps beyond safe boundaries of literary conventions in a creative interplay of formal constraint and experimentation, Agbabi queers the sonnet form, destabilizing normative gay, lesbian, black, men’s and women’s identities’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09574042.2015.1106252" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">(369)</a>. The comment gestures to the multiple influences on Agbabi’s work and her adept reshaping of traditional poetic forms so as to produce new conceptions of intersections between race, gender, and sexuality—conceptions that are loaded with social and political critique.</p>
<p>During her time as the Canterbury Poet Laureate, Agbabi produced her fourth collection, <em>Telling Tales</em> (2015), in which she satirically revises Chaucer’s fourteenth-century <em>Canterbury Tales</em> for modern times. <a href="http://www.renaissanceone.co.uk/patience-agbabi">Simon Armitage lauded</a> <em>Telling Tales</em> as ‘the liveliest versions of Chaucer you’re likely to read.’ This collection was also shortlisted for the 2014 Ted Hughes for New Work in Poetry. In 2015, responding to the growing refugee crisis, Agbabi participated in the first <a href="http://www.renaissanceone.co.uk/patience-agbabi"><em>Refugee Tales</em></a> walks with Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group and Kent Refugee Help. The resulting collection of work from this project, published in 2016, reflects the capacity of the written word to capture otherwise inarticulable experiences of dislocation. Resistance to the dehumanising of refugees in the media and political narrative is encapsulated in the final line of Agbabi’s contribution to the collection: ‘The story ends where you put the frame: / but however it begins, remember my name’ <a href="https://commapress.co.uk/books/refugee-tales" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">(132)</a>.</p>
<p><em>—Chelsea Haith, 2019</em></p>
<hr>
<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: Haith, Chelsea.&nbsp;“[scf-post-title].”&nbsp;<em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2019,&nbsp;[scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/video-patience-agbabi-reading-conversation/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Patience Agbabi reading and conversation, with Elleke Boehmer and Marion Turner, Great Writers Inspire at Home, Oxford, 5 December 2019</a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-agbabi-reading-conversation">Chelsea Haith: ‘No Beautiful Poems About Violence’, a short essay on the Great Writers Inspire at Home event with Patience Agbabi (2019)</a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBWf68loplQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Agbabi talks about her children&#8217;s book, <em>The Infinite</em>, Blackwell&#8217;s Children&#8217;s Book of the Month for April 2020</a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://vimeo.com/121629769" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Telling Tales Slam: several poets, including Agbabi, perform poems from <em>Telling Tales</em>, hosted by Apples and Snakes and Renaissance One (2015)</a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.transculturalwriting.com/radiophonics/contents/writersonwriting/patienceagbabi/thewifeofbafa-analysis/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Agbabi analyses her poem, &#8216;The Wife of Bafa&#8217;. She discusses her writing process, influences, and the reasons behind her stylistic and performance decisions.</a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://poetrystation.org.uk/search/poets/patience-agbabi" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Videos of Agbabi performing several poems, <em>The Poetry Station</em></a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/patience-agbabi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Stephanie Everett. Profile of Patience Agbabi, <em>Aesthetica Magazine</em> (2007)</a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://idontcallmyselfapoet.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/patience-agbabi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Agbabi interviewed by Amaris Gentle, <em>I Don&#8217;t Call Myself a Poet</em> (2012)</a></td>
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<td width="30">&nbsp;<i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://patienceagbabi.wordpress.com">Patience Agbabi&#8217;s WordPress blog (last updated 2015)</a></td>
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<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<p><em>Telling Tales</em> (2014)</p>
<p><em>Bloodshot Monochrome</em> (2008)</p>
<p><em>Transformatrix</em> (2000)</p>
<p><em>R.A.W.</em> (1995)</p>
</div><br><div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"><a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/patienceagbabi" data-height="400" data-width="400">Tweets by patienceagbabi</a> <a href="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js</a></div><br></div><br></div></div></div></div><p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/patience-agbabi/">Patience Agbabi</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3366</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Akala</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/akala/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jul 2017 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Non-fiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Akala]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=4903</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Akala Biography Writing Since the publication of Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire, Akala has become a prominent commentator on empire and race, both in Britain and globally. Written<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/akala/">Read More...</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/akala/">Akala</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<h1 class="wp-block-heading">Akala</h1>


<div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WUtAxUQjwB4?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>
<h2>Biography</h2>
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<p>Akala is the stage name of Kingslee Daley (1983– ), a historian and poet, journalist and hip-hop artist, as well as a life-long advocate for community theatre and the arts. He was born to a working-class Scottish mother and Jamaican father in Crawley, West Sussex, in 1983, and grew up in Kentish Town, north London. Because his stepfather was a stage manager at the Hackney Empire theatre, Akala was exposed to the power of music and performance from an early age. He has released five studio albums to date, along with several EPs, mixtapes, and singles. With The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company, which he founded in 2009, Akala has revolutionised Shakespearean theatre. His first book, <em>Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire</em>, was published in 2018.</p>
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<p>Akala carefully picks apart two pervasive and inter-connected myths; the delusion that we live in a meritocracy and the fantasy that the exceptional achievements of some black people are proof that the obstacles of poverty and race can be overcome by all.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/24/natives-race-class-ruins-empire-akala-review" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">David Olusoga</a></p>
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<h2>Writing</h2>
<div id="attachment_4904" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/benpugh/19358449303/in/photostream/" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-3188 noreferrer"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4904" data-attachment-id="4904" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/akala/akala/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/akala.jpg" data-orig-size="800,534" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Akala" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;Akala&lt;/p&gt;
" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;Akala&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/akala-300x200.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/akala.jpg" class="wp-image-4904 size-medium" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/akala-300x200.jpg" alt="Black and white photograph of Akala performing on a darkened stage" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/akala-300x200.jpg 300w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/akala-768x513.jpg 768w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/akala.jpg 800w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-4904" class="wp-caption-text">Akala at the Hull Jazz Festival, 2015 (Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/benpugh/">Ben Pugh</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY 2.0</a>)</p></div>
<p>Since the publication of <em>Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire</em>, Akala has become a prominent commentator on empire and race, both in Britain and globally. Written in the wake of a resurgent white nationalism, <em>Natives </em>is a <em>tour de force</em> of imperial history and anti-racist critique, and a must-read for anyone hoping to understand Britain today. Akala dropped out of college and did not attend university, valuing other forms of community-based knowledge and autodidacticism instead. He has spoken proudly of the pan-African Saturday school he attended as a child, and his aptly named 2012 two-part mixtape, <em>Knowledge is Power</em>, places an emphasis on knowing your own history and your place in the world (“when you hear somebody’s rapping, the base of it is African […] Don’t let them tell you ‘bout yourself”). In 2018, just months after <em>Natives </em>was published, he was awarded no fewer than <em>two</em> honorary doctorates – one from Oxford Brookes University and the other from the University of Brighton – for his book about anti-racist politics and history. As he joked in his Twitter handle for some time afterwards, he is now “Dr Dr Akala”.</p>
<p>Akala’s artistic career extends back far longer than this most recent book, however. His older sister is the ground-breaking female rap artist Niomi Arleen McLean-Daley MBE, otherwise known as Ms Dynamite. Because of his stepfather’s theatrical work, Akala saw “more theatre growing up than any rich child is likely to”, and the power of performance to make new worlds is a central theme in his work. Akala scatters Shakespearean references into much of his hip hop work; in fact, the fourth track on his first studio album, <em>It’s Not a Rumour</em> (2006), is named after the Bard. As he raps on “Shakespeare”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s William back from the dead<br />But I rap about gats and I’m black instead<br />It’s Shakespeare, reincarnated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The lyrics to his later track, “Comedy Tragedy History” (2007), build the titles of twenty-seven Shakespeare plays into its first two verses, which Akala wrote in less than half an hour during a live challenge on BBC Radio 1Xtra. In 2009, he established The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company, an organisation leading live events, educational workshops, and theatre productions that reinterpret Shakespeare’s works while at the same time “expanding the Hip Hop art form as a medium of self-expression for the masses”.</p>
<p>Akala remains at once an activist and an artist, as captured once again in his epic poem, “The Ruins of Empires”, an abridged version of which he performed live for the BBC in 2018. Anti-imperialist in his politics and anti-racist in his practice, Akala’s is a holistic vision: he has the ability to see how disparate crises are connected by global histories and the ambition to build worldly solidarities in response. While recognising how tough the struggle for these solidarities can be, in his own life and practice Akala has demonstrated that theatre, performance, and writing must be central to any worthwhile attempt.</p>
<p><em>—Dominic Davies, 2020</em></p>
<hr />
<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: Davies, Dominic. “[scf-post-title].” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2020, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
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<div class="resources">
<h2>Resources</h2>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-akala-natives/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Essay extract From ‘Natives: Autobiography and Anti-Racism After Empire’, by Dominic Davies (2020)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiYI839cr9A" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Akala, Black &amp; British, Race &amp; Class in the Ruins of Empire Synopsis, The Search for Racial Equality, Talks at Google (2020)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/26/akala-grew-up-embarrassed-mother-white" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Akala, &#8216;As I grew up, I became embarrassed by my mother’s whiteness&#8217;, <em>The Guardian</em> (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1v41j" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&#8216;Akala Presents: The Ruins of Empires&#8217;, Performance Live, BBC Two (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/never-voted-before-jeremy-corbyn-changed-mind" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Akala, &#8216;By choice, I’ve never voted before. But Jeremy Corbyn has changed my mind&#8217;, <em>The Guardian</em> (2017) </a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/24/natives-race-class-ruins-empire-akala-review">David Olusoga, &#8216;Natives by Akala review – the artist on race and class in the ruins of empire&#8217;, <em>The Guardian</em> (2018)</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSbtkLA3GrY">Akala, &#8216;Hip-Hop &amp; Shakespeare?&#8217;, TedX Talk (2011)</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCcqS6AP8uI" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Akala, &#8216;Shakespeare&#8217; (Official Music Video), (2007)</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.hiphopshakespeare.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company website</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.akala.moonfruit.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Akala&#8217;s official site</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div></div></div></div>
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<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<h3>Non-fiction</h3>
<p><em>Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire </em>(2018)</p>
<h3>Discography</h3>
<p><em>Knowledge Is Power II</em> (2015)</p>
<p><em>The Thieves Banquet</em> (2013)</p>
<p><em>DoubleThink</em> (2010)</p>
<p><em>Freedom Lasso</em> (2007)</p>
<p><em>It&#8217;s Not a Rumour</em> (2006)</p>
</div><div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"><a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/akalamusic" data-height="400" data-width="400">Tweets by akalamusic</a><a href="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js</a></div>
</div></div></div></div></div><p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/akala/">Akala</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4903</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Inua Ellams</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/inua-ellams/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2017 21:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Drama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Inua Ellams]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=5101</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Inua Ellams Biography Writing Ellams’s lyricism and cultural references point to influences ranging from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the intellectual playfulness of Terry Pratchett, with a strong undertow running throughout of Nigerian oral<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/inua-ellams/">Read More...</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/inua-ellams/">Inua Ellams</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<h1 class="wp-block-heading">Inua Ellams</h1>


<div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EggEOYIbceg?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>
<h2>Biography</h2>
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<p><a href="http://www.inuaellams.com/#about">Inua Ellams</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_of_Literature">FRSL</a> is a multimedia performer and poet who writes for the stage and the page  as well as working in graphic design. Born in Nigeria in 1984, he has been a Londoner since adolescence. His first poetry pamphlet <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/13-fairy-negro-tales/9781905233045?aid=14265&amp;listref=black-british-uk">Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales</a> (2005), published by <a href="https://flippedeye.net/product/13-fairy-negro-tales/">flippedeye</a>, was critically and commercially successful, selling over 2,000 copies. He made his British stage debut four years later, in 2009, with the play <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/14th-Tale-Inua-Ellams/9781783198856"><em>The 14<sup>th</sup> Tale</em></a> which won an Edinburgh Fringe First award. Ellams was the poet-in-residence at Covent Garden in 2010 and at the Tate Modern in 2011. Following commissions from Louis Vuitton, BBC Radio, Soho Theatre, Battersea Arts and Tate Modern, his play <a href="https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/barber-shop-chronicles-at-roundhouse#:~:text=Directed%20by%20Olivier%20award%2Dwinning,course%20of%20a%20single%20day."><em>Barber Shop Chronicles</em></a> (2017–2019), about the things Black men discuss while having their hair done, catapulted him into the broader public consciousness with two sell-out runs at the National Theatre. He has performed on stages across the world, including at the Sydney Opera House and in Denmark, and at most of the major festivals in Britain, including Glastonbury and Latitude. He is an ambassador for the <a href="https://ministryofstories.org/">Ministry of Stories</a>, a non-profit literacy project based in East London. With four pamphlets out, Ellams published his first full collection <a href="http://www.inuaellams.com/news/2020/9/21/the-actual-fuck"><em>The Actual / Fuck</em></a> in 2020.</p>
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<blockquote>
[Ellams&#8217;s] voice is interestingly shaped and transmuted by his transnational journey and residence in the United Kingdom which has offered up a ragbag of high and low forms, the whimsy of Salman Rushdie and Neil Gaiman, the playfulness of Terry Pratchett, the powerful beauty and delicacy of Shakespeare’s <em>Hamlet</em>.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—<a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/inua-ellams" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Delia Jarrett-Macauley</a></p>
</blockquote>
</div></div>
<h2>Writing</h2>
<div id="attachment_5103" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://flic.kr/p/6xhqXB" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-3188 noreferrer"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5103" data-attachment-id="5103" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/inua-ellams/inua-ellams-2/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/inua-ellams-1.jpg" data-orig-size="799,532" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Inua Ellams" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;Inua Ellams, 2009. Photo: Kim-Leng (CC BY-ND 2.0)&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/inua-ellams-1-300x200.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/inua-ellams-1.jpg" class="wp-image-5103 size-medium" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/inua-ellams-1-300x200.jpg" alt="Inua Ellams performing on stage" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/inua-ellams-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/inua-ellams-1-768x511.jpg 768w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/inua-ellams-1.jpg 799w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-5103" class="wp-caption-text">Inua Ellams, 2009. Photo: <a href="https://flic.kr/p/6xhqXB">Kim-Leng</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">CC BY-ND 2.0</a>)</p></div>
<p>Ellams’s lyricism and cultural references point to influences ranging from Shakespeare’s <em>Hamlet</em> to the intellectual playfulness of Terry Pratchett, with a strong undertow running throughout of Nigerian oral literature or orature. Critic and writer Delia Jarrett-Macauley highlights the success of Ellams’s ‘linguistic, but low-key virtuosity’, as strikingly demonstrated in the lines written for his stage characters. Inspired by his heroes, the Nigerian writers Chinua Achebe and Ben Okri, Ellams’s poems and plays tell stories of his own life and those of others’ that are infused with the myths, legends, market gossip and lively cultural intermingling of his birth country.</p>
<p>Writing about Ellams’s dramatic work, Nigerian critic Uche-Chinemere Nwaozuzu notes that the solo drama style of his play <em>The 14<sup>th</sup> Tale</em> reflects characteristic dramatizations in Nigeria of the outsider figure who struggles to come to terms with their identity and with fate. For Nwaozuzu, the play’s protagonist is a ‘split personality who battles with inherited personal demons and the need to chart a social identity’ during his youth in Nigeria and later in the diaspora. At the same time, he embodies the classical image of the Greek hero at the mercy of fate. Another of Ellams’s influences, Wole Soyinka, writes about characters beset by internal conflict in comparable ways, such as in a play like <em>The Road</em>. Here we see Ellams bringing together and channelling influences from European and Nigerian dramatic traditions into the British dramatic scene.</p>
<p>Ellams’s first full poetry collection <em>The Actual / Fuck</em> began its life as an anti-Trump project tentatively called ‘Fuck 45’ that Ellams composed on buses, trains and in the in-between moments of his busy life (Armitstead, The Guardian, 2019). His target was clearly the populist right-wing nationalism of the 45<sup>th</sup> president of the United States, and the way in which Donald Trump’s values revealed that country’s divided consciousness. Drawing also upon his own experiences of troubled national myth-making, Ellams’s collection comprises fifty-five poems that engage passionately with themes of empire, nationalism, and racism, while also calling out the corroding, toxic effects of some forms of masculinity.</p>
<p>Speaking about his writing process at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88TH3h4fvy0&amp;feature=youtu.be">Oxford Playhouse Search Party</a> online event in November 2020, Ellams observed that many of his ideas first start as poems and then move into dramatic and dialogue forms that are further fleshed out on stage. He feels therefore that he is first and foremost a poet. However, all of his work grows out of his two major thematic and experiential influences: his odyssey as a migrant to Britain, and his experience of finding ways to belong in his new country. His journey from Jos, Nigeria to London via Dublin at the age of twelve is an especially major influence on his stage work and is frequently alluded to if not directly referenced in his plays, especially in his early work. His poems deal prominently with questions of being-in-place, and of cultural differences experienced in the African diaspora.</p>
<p>Ellams’s work is produced  in the moment and he shares it generously, drawing on the world as he sees it and performing off the cuff at the audience’s whim. In performance, he is innovative and daring. For example, he often uses an app to search for and share poems using single words suggested by the audience. His virtuoso mix of deep cross-cultural allusion with technological innovation is reflected in his recognition as one of the <a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/news/rsl/">Royal Society of Literature’s 40 under 40</a> writers.</p>
<p><em>—Chelsea Haith, 2021</em></p>
<hr />
<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: Haith, Chelsea. “[scf-post-title].” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2021, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
<hr />
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<div class="resources">
<h2>Resources</h2>
<table width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-ellams-fuck-tupac-the-actual/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Short essay: Close reading of Inua Ellams’s ‘Fuck / <em>Tupac</em>’ from <em>The Actual</em>, by Chelsea Haith (2021)</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88TH3h4fvy0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Search Party performance event with Ellams, hosted by The Oxford Playhouse and Writers Make Worlds, 5 November 2020</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/22/inua-ellams-poet-playwright-cultural-impresario" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inua Ellams: ‘In the UK, black men were thought of as animalistic&#8217;, interview with Claire Armitstead, <em>The Guardian</em> (2019)</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://vimeo.com/460089903" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Book trailer for <em>The Actual </em>(2020)</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://vimeo.com/127986218" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forty-minute poetry set by Ellams, filmed at the Giving Word Festival (2015) </a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/inua-ellams" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Profile and critical perspective on Inua Ellams, British Council Literature</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.inuaellams.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inua Ellams&#8217;s official site</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div></div></div></div>
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<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<h3>Poetry</h3>
<p><em>The Actual </em>(2020)</p>
<p><em>The Wire-Headed Heathen</em> (2015)</p>
<p><em>Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars</em> (2011)</p>
<p><em>Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales</em> (2005)</p>
<h3>Drama and performance</h3>
<p><em>Three Sisters</em> (2019)</p>
<p><em>The Half God of Rainfall</em> (2019)</p>
<p><em>Barber Shop Chronicles</em> (2017)</p>
<p><em>An Evening with an Immigrant</em> (2017)</p>
<p><em>The Spalding Suite</em> (2015)</p>
<p><em>#Afterhours </em>(2015)</p>
<p><em>Cape </em>(2013)</p>
<p><em>Black T-Shirt Collection</em> (2012)</p>
<p><em>Knight Watch</em> (2012)</p>
<p><em>Untitled</em> (2010)</p>
<p><em>The 14th Tale</em> (2009)</p>
</div><div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"><a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/InuaEllams" data-height="400" data-width="400">Tweets by InuaEllams</a><a href="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js</a></div>
</div></div></div></div></div><p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/inua-ellams/">Inua Ellams</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">5101</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Caleb Femi</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/caleb-femi/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jul 2017 11:00:45 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Caleb Femi]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=1870</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Caleb Femi (1990– ) is a poet, filmmaker, and photographer. Born in Kano, Nigeria, he moved to London when he was seven years old, settling in Peckham...<br />
<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/caleb-femi/">Profile and resources</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/caleb-femi/">Caleb Femi</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1><span style="color: #e00086;">Caleb Femi</span></h1>
<p><div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iZBicPStpuM?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></p>
<h2>Biography</h2>
<p><div class="tx-row "><br />
<div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"></p>
<p>Caleb Femi (1990– ) is a poet, filmmaker, and photographer. Born in Kano, Nigeria, he moved to London when he was seven years old, settling in Peckham – an experience he explores in his poem, <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-femi-performance/">‘Children of the ’Narm’</a>. After studying English Literature at university, he became a secondary school teacher, only giving up that job in 2016 shortly before being named London’s first Young People’s Laureate. He won the Roundhouse Poetry Slam in 2015, was featured in the Dazed 100 list of the next generation shaping youth culture in 2017, and frequently performs his poetry internationally. He is currently working on his debut poetry collection.</p>
<p></div><br />
<div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"></p>
<blockquote><p>[My poetry is] about my understanding about being in London, Britain, the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—<a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/meet-londons-new-generation-of-poets-from-caleb-femi-to-greta-bellamacina-a3390961.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Caleb Femi</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p></div><br />
</div></p>
<h2>Writing</h2>
<p><div id="attachment_1903" style="width: 340px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-femi-performance/caleb-femi/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1903" data-attachment-id="1903" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-femi-performance/caleb-femi-2/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi.jpg" data-orig-size="1348,1500" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="caleb femi" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;caleb femi&lt;/p&gt;
" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;caleb femi&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi-270x300.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi-920x1024.jpg" class="wp-image-1903 " src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi-920x1024.jpg" alt="Caleb Femi (photo: Caleb Femi)" width="330" height="367" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi-920x1024.jpg 920w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi-270x300.jpg 270w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi-768x855.jpg 768w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/caleb-femi.jpg 1348w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 330px) 100vw, 330px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-1903" class="wp-caption-text">Caleb Femi (photo: Caleb Femi)</p></div></p>
<p>When Caleb Femi became the Young People’s Laureate for London in 2016, <a href="https://www.thelondonmagazine.org/interview-caleb-femi-young-poet-laureate-london/">he explained his vision for the role</a> as seeking to,</p>
<blockquote><p>re-engage young people, who have long been disenfranchised, through poetry. I don’t see it as far-fetched to normalise poetry among all demographics of young people in London. Poetry is the one of the purest forms of conversation there is. At its best, it allows us to communicate from an honest and safe place. And young people deserve to be included in such spaces.</p></blockquote>
<p>Femi’s commitment to ridding poetry of its inaccessibility, revealing it instead as an art form in which young people’s voices can be heard, is central to the task of the Young People’s Laureate. Originally the role was known as London’s Young Poet Laureate (a post first held by <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/warsan-shire/">Warsan Shire</a>), so the name-change signals the emphasis on engaging young people across the city. In keeping with this, Femi has brought the democratising power of the internet to bear on his work throughout his career. He has uploaded his spoken word performances and short films, and made them freely available via his <a href="http://www.calebfemi.com/3001712-home" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a> and YouTube.</p>
<p>In this way Femi puts into practice his belief that poetry always remains unfinished, ready to be reworked and reshaped at any time. It is an idea he first explored in his undergraduate dissertation when he focused on the work of American poet Emily Dickinson, who frequently rewrote her poems or left them deliberately unfinished. In his own poetry it can be seen, for example, in the different versions of ‘Coconut Oil’ to be found online. One of these poignantly changes the close of the poem.</p>
<p>Often autobiographical, Femi’s poetry frequently focuses on the experiences of being a young black man in Britain. He has become a sought-after speaker, addressing audiences at the Tate Modern, the South Bank Centre, and TEDx events. In 2018, his poem <a href="https://blog.heathrow.com/caleb-femi-ode-to-heathrow/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘A Tale of Modern Britain’</a> was commissioned by Heathrow airport, to celebrate – in Femi’s words – ‘what it means to be British and the emotions that unite us all when we travel’. Images of the poet performing his poetry and giving words to people’s experience of flight are visible on big screens around the airport in exciting and provocative ways.</p>
<p><em>—Justine McConnell, 2018</em></p>
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<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: McConnell, Justine. “Caleb Femi.” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2018, https://writersmakeworlds.com/caleb-femi/. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
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<p><div class="tx-row  tx-fwidth" style=""><div class="tx-fw-inner" style="background-color: #e00086; background-attachment: fixed; background-size: auto; "><div class="tx-fw-overlay" style="padding-bottom:32px; padding-top:32px; background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.2);"><div class="tx-fw-content"></p>
<div class="resources">
<h2>Resources</h2>
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<tbody>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-femi-performance/" rel="noopener">Short essay: ‘Caleb Femi in Performance’ by Justine McConnell</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-file-audio-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/calebfemi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Listen to Caleb Femi’s work on SoundCloud</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu50ymDL9c0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Caleb Femi performs ‘Coconut Oil’ at Sofar London (2016)</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/37588/1/how-caleb-femi-is-making-poetry-relatable-again" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘How Caleb Femi is making poetry relatable again’, interview with Kemi Alemoru, <em>Dazed</em> (2017)</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.gal-dem.com/whats-in-your-mind/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Georgia Bowen-Evans, ‘What’s in your mind? Exploring the thoughts of poet and artist Caleb Femi’, <em>gal-dem</em> (2017)</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2017/09/28/caleb-femi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Caleb Femi interviewed by Clara Hernanz, <em>Wonderland Magazine</em> (2017)</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/38102/1/caleb-femi-random-acts-london-estates" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kemi Alemoru: ‘This film wants you to see the light in London’s Estates’, <em>Dazed</em> (2017)</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.calebfemi.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Caleb Femi’s official website</a></td>
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</tbody>
</table>
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<p></div></div></div></div></p>
<p><div class="tx-row  tx-fwidth" style=""><div class="tx-fw-inner" style="background-color: #ebebeb; background-attachment: fixed; background-size: cover; "><div class="tx-fw-overlay" style="padding-bottom:32px; padding-top:32px; background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0);"><div class="tx-fw-content"><br />
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<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<h3>Poetry</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.calebfemi.com/work" target="_blank" rel="noopener">See Caleb Femi’s website</a></p>
<h3>Short films</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHY3-c3IGM0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">And They Knew Light</a> (2017)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyi79rVXQMY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Granite As Heirloom</a><span style="display: inline !important;float: none;background-color: transparent;color: #141412;cursor: text;font-family: 'Source Sans Pro',Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size: 16px;font-style: normal;font-variant: normal;font-weight: 400;letter-spacing: normal;text-align: left;text-decoration: none;text-indent: 0px;text-transform: none;white-space: normal"> (film-poem, 2017)</span></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivhacww-EMc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FAM</a> (2017)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk-1IEOGDBk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heartbreak &amp; Grime</a> (documentary, 2016)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrGpTwU8bVw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What Did Love Taste Like In the 70s?</a> (documentary, 2015)</p>
<p></div><br />
<div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"><a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/CalebFemi5" data-width="400" data-height="400">Tweets by CalebFemi5</a> <a href="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js</a></div><br />
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</div></div></div></div></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/caleb-femi/">Caleb Femi</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">1870</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Linton Kwesi Johnson</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jul 2017 10:45:36 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Linton Kwesi Johnson]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=59</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Linton Kwesi Johnson was born in 1952 in Chapelton, a small rural town in Jamaica. He moved to London at the age of 11 to join his mother who had immigrated two years earlier.<br />
<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/">Profile and resources</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/">Linton Kwesi Johnson</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h1><span style="color: #e00086;">Linton Kwesi Johnson</span></h1>
<p><div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A-BlbEMzV5k?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div></p>
<h2>Biography</h2>
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<p>Linton Kwesi Johnson was born in 1952 in Chapelton, a small rural town in Jamaica. He moved to London at the age of 11 to join his mother who had immigrated two years earlier. In London, he attended Tulse Hill Comprehensive and lived with his mother in Brixton, an area of London with many Jamaican immigrants that is vividly depicted in his poetry.</p>
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<blockquote><p>His is a uniquely British form of language [&#8230;] This is the English language coming back home, changed.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/may/04/poetry.books" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ellah Wakatama Allfrey</a></p>
</blockquote>
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<p>While at school, Johnson joined the British Black Panthers’ youth section. The Panthers had access to a library where Johnson was exposed to African American literature, introducing him to a legacy of black intellectual history and literary culture that the English school system had not taught him. As well as the Harlem Renaissance writers, Johnson discovered W. E. B. Du Bois’s <em>The Souls of Black Folk</em>, which was one of his core inspirations to begin writing poetry. Johnson’s desire to create reggae poetry was motivated by his own passion for reggae music and by this tradition’s previous experimentations with jazz poetry.</p>
<p>His volumes of printed poetry include <em>Voices of the Living and the Dead</em> (1974), <em>Dread Beat and Blood </em>(1975), and<em> Inglan is a Bitch</em> (1980). In 2002, <em>Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems </em>was published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. He has also released several reggae albums, including <em>Dread Beat an’ Blood</em> (1978), <em>Forces of Victory</em> (1979) and <em>Bass Culture</em> (1980).</p>
<h2>Writing</h2>
<p><div id="attachment_1474" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ledgard/1756331326/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1474" data-attachment-id="1474" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/linton-kwesi-johnson-2/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/linton-kwesi-johnson.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,686" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="linton kwesi johnson" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;linton kwesi johnson&lt;/p&gt;
" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;linton kwesi johnson&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/linton-kwesi-johnson-300x201.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/linton-kwesi-johnson-1024x686.jpg" class="wp-image-1474 size-medium" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/linton-kwesi-johnson-300x201.jpg" alt="Linton Kwesi Johnson, Bryan Ledgard, 2007 (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr" width="300" height="201" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/linton-kwesi-johnson-300x201.jpg 300w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/linton-kwesi-johnson-768x515.jpg 768w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/linton-kwesi-johnson.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-1474" class="wp-caption-text">Linton Kwesi Johnson, Bryan Ledgard, 2007 <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(CC BY 2.0)</a> via Flickr</p></div></p>
<p>John McLeod points out that Johnson’s life and work form a bridge between the post-war generation of Caribbean immigrant writers and the ‘so called “second-generation” British-born black Britons’. Johnson’s work is deeply embedded in the tradition of Anglophone Caribbean oral poetry. However, he has simultaneously played a crucial role in giving voice to a specifically Black British identity through his anti-racist activism in Britain, innovation in the field of British reggae, and interaction with the punk movement and other British subcultures.</p>
<p>Johnson’s dub poetry often challenges the boundaries between music, poetry, and ‘real-world’ politics. It is often explicitly political, and many of his poems explore issues such as police harassment, racism, and classism in a very confrontational and straightforward way. His most famous poem ‘Inglan is a Bitch’ portrays the bleak reality of racial discrimination, unemployed, and low-paid jobs in a grey and depressing 1970s England. Poems such as ‘Bass Culture’, ‘Dread Beat an Blood’, and ‘Five Nights of Bleeding’ also vividly portray urban nightlife and reggae and sound-system culture in Britain.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" class="youtube-player" width="604" height="340" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zq9OpJYck7Y?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent" allowfullscreen="true" style="border:0;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox"></iframe></p>
<p>Through his depiction of everyday life in Brixton and his chronicling of important political events and cultural movements in black history in Britain, Johnson’s poetry constantly explores the relationship between aesthetics and politics, and the ways in which poetry and political activism can merge, supplement, and challenge one another.</p>
<p><em>—Louisa Layne, 2017</em></p>
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<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: Layne, Louisa. “[scf-post-title].” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2017, https://writersmakeworlds.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
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<div class="resources">
<h2>Resources</h2>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/video-linton-kwesi-johnson-paul-gilroy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Watch Linton Kwesi Johnson read his poetry and discuss it with Professor Paul Gilroy, Great Writers Inspire at Home, Oxford, 26 April 2018</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-johnson-bass-culture/" rel="noopener">‘Reading “Bass Culture”: Linton Kwesi Johnson’s politics of Rhythm and Bass’, an introductory essay by Louisa Layne</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/exhibition-report-beyond-the-bassline-500-years-of-black-british-music/" rel="noopener">Eliza McCarthy: Exhibition Report – <em>Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music</em> (2024)</a></td>
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<td width="30"><i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbhVqXxG6VY&amp;t=2412s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Henghameh Saroukhani discusses the literary importance of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poetry, Great Writers Inspire at Home, Oxford, 15 June 2017</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/mar/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview11" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">‘I did my own thing’, Linton Kwesi Johnson interviewed by Nicholas Wroe, <em>The Guardian</em> (2008)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2014.977493" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Henghameh Saroukhani, ‘Penguinizing dub: Paratextual frames for transnational protest in Linton Kwesi Johnson’s <em>Mi Revalueshanary Fren</em>’, <em>Journal of Postcolonial Writing </em>51.3 (2015): 256–268</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://www.popmatters.com/column/68919-linton-kwesi-johnson-and-the-eloquence-of-rioters/P0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Raphaël Costambeys-Kempczynski, ‘Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Eloquence of Rioters’, <em>PopMatters</em> (2009)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/word-sound-and-power-the-lyrical-making-of-african/blog/coltrane-brathwaite-word-sound.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bruce Barnhart, ‘Coltrane Brathwaite Word Sound’, <em>The Word, Sound and Power Research Blog</em> (2024)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/discography/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Linton Kwesi Johnson’s official website</a></td>
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</table>
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<p></div></div></div></div></p>
<p><div class="tx-row  tx-fwidth" style=""><div class="tx-fw-inner" style="background-color: #ebebeb; background-attachment: fixed; background-size: cover; "><div class="tx-fw-overlay" style="padding-bottom:32px; padding-top:32px; background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0);"><div class="tx-fw-content"></p>
<h2>Bibliography (selected)</h2>
<h3>Poetry</h3>
<p><em>Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems</em> (2002)</p>
<p><em>Tings An’ Times</em> (1991)</p>
<p><em>Inglan Is A Bitch </em>(1980)</p>
<p><em>Dread Beat and Blood</em> (1975)</p>
<p><em>Voices of the Living and the Dead</em> (1974)</p>
<p>A comprehensive bibliography can be found on the <a href="http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/bibliography/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">official LKJ site</a></p>
<h3>Albums</h3>
<p><em>Live in Paris</em> (2003)</p>
<p><em>LKJ in Dub: Volume Three </em>(2002)</p>
<p><em>More Time</em> (1998)</p>
<p><em>LKJ A Cappella Live </em>(1996)</p>
<p><em>LKJ in Dub: Volume Two</em> (1992)</p>
<p><em>Tings An’ Times</em> (1991)</p>
<p><em>LKJ in Concert with the Dub Band</em> (1984)</p>
<p><em>Making History </em>(1984)</p>
<p><em>Bass Culture</em> (1980)</p>
<p><em>LKJ in Dub </em>(1980)</p>
<p><em>Forces of Victory</em> (1979)</p>
<p><em>Dread Beat an’ Blood</em> (1978)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lintonkwesijohnson.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/discography/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LKJ’s official website</a> includes a comprehensive discography</p>
<p></div></div></div></div></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/">Linton Kwesi Johnson</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">59</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Anthony Joseph</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/anthony-joseph/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jul 2017 10:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Fiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anthony Joseph]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=4519</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Anthony Joseph (1966– ) is an unmatched presence in contemporary literature, touted as ‘the leader of the black avant-garde in Britain’ and nominated...<br />
<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/anthony-joseph/">Profile and resources</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/anthony-joseph/">Anthony Joseph</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<h1 class="wp-block-heading">Anthony Joseph</h1>


<div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hrXHc7wleM0?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>
<h2>Biography</h2>
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<p>Anthony Joseph (1966– ) is an unmatched presence in contemporary literature, touted as <a href="https://www.wasafiri.org/article/wasafiri-wonders-anthony-joseph/">‘the leader of the black avant-garde in Britain’</a> and nominated by the Arts Council of England as <a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/anthony-joseph">one of the fifty writers who have most influenced post-war Black British writing</a>. Born in Trinidad, Joseph was raised by his grandparents in the suburb of Mt Lambert, eight miles from Port of Spain. His first twenty-three years living in Trinidad had an enormous influence on the four poetry collections, three novels, and seven critically acclaimed albums that he has produced since moving to London in 1989. He holds a PhD in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths College, for which he completed <em>Kitch</em> (2018), a fictional biography of Lord Kitchener, <a href="https://youtu.be/QDH4IBeZF-M?t=117">‘the king of Calypso singers’</a> and a Windrush generation migrant. <em>Kitch</em> was subsequently shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the RSL Encore award, and the 2019 Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Joseph currently lectures in Creative Writing at De Montford University, Leicester.</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>Why isn’t there a black British avant-garde movement in poetry? And if there is one, why are these poets silent? Why should this be so, when the UK has such a rich and complex history of immigration and exile? – When it has a culture that is preoccupied with issues of identity and belonging, some of the very things that precipitate an avant-garde?</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—Anthony Joseph</p>
</blockquote>
</div></div>
<h2>Writing</h2>
<div id="attachment_4520" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anthony_Joseph,_2016.jpg" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-3188 noreferrer"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4520" data-attachment-id="4520" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/anthony-joseph/anthony_joseph_2016/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Anthony_Joseph_2016.jpg" data-orig-size="566,474" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="Anthony Joseph 2016" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;Anthony Joseph 2016&lt;/p&gt;
" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;Anthony Joseph 2016&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Anthony_Joseph_2016-300x251.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Anthony_Joseph_2016.jpg" class="wp-image-4520 size-medium" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Anthony_Joseph_2016-300x251.jpg" alt="Photograph of Anthony Joseph" width="300" height="251" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Anthony_Joseph_2016-300x251.jpg 300w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Anthony_Joseph_2016.jpg 566w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-4520" class="wp-caption-text">Anthony Joseph, 2016 (Photo: Bonuggy <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY-SA 4.0</a> via Wikimedia Commons)</p></div>
<p>As Anthony Joseph stated in a recent lecture: <a href="https://youtu.be/lexmeTirrfQ?t=3177">‘I’m not British. I’m not English… I didn’t grow up here’</a>. In both their experimental form and content, Joseph’s poetry, novels, and music seek to reflect the experience of the Caribbean, especially life and culture in Trinidad. However, rather than adhering to a single national or cultural identity, Joseph consciously situates himself and his work within a global literary lineage.</p>
<p>His poetry expresses this in multiple ways. He writes in several different languages, such as Haitian creole, Trinidad and Tobago <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_language">nation language</a>, Yoruba, Jamaican patois, French, and English. These are combined with an avant-garde, surrealist sensibility, that uses broken syntax, neologisms, non-linear narrative, and innovative punctuation and capitalization. The impact of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/jul/12/oulipo-freeing-literature-tightening-rules">the French Oulipo movement</a> on his work is clear, but so is that of Caribbean writers such as Wilson Harris, Kamau Brathwaite and Aimé Césaire. Joseph has said that it is these ‘like-minded black experimentalists’ that he turned to when he could find none in the United Kingdom (Joseph 2009: 155).</p>
<p>The polyvocality and formal innovation of Joseph’s work constitutes a challenge to what he calls ‘conceptual colonialism’: that is, the predominance of a certain type of black British writing, which is ‘performative’ with a ‘linear narrative’ that calls ‘for class- and race-based social interventions… [alongside] directly discussing dual identities and cultural tensions’ (Ramey 2009: 88).</p>
<p>This activist-style of writing, in Joseph’s view, was once radical. However, today, it is the norm and there is a limit to the kinds of questions it allows one to ask and the answers that are possible therein. As Joseph says during <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hauD2NqdvAY">the final, eponymous track</a> of his latest album, <em>People of the Sun </em>(2018): ‘the surface of a thing will never give up its secrets if all you do is ask’.</p>
<p>This commitment to going beyond surface-level engagements translates into the mythic, dream-like quality of Joseph’s work, a style that attempts to capture experiences of alienation, exile, music, landscape, and the legacy of slavery. His earliest poetry collections, <em>Desafinado </em>(1994) and <em>Teragaton </em>(1997), experiment with this in mind, with the latter inviting ‘participants’, rather than an audience, to create the text through their interaction with it. <em>Bird Head Son </em>(2009) begins from the day Joseph migrated to London and works anti-chronologically through his life, focusing on landscape in a similar vein to Jean Rhys’s <em>Wide Sargasso Sea</em>: beautiful, unpredictable, and often biblical.</p>
<p>The significance of non-linear narration is most acutely felt in Joseph’s novels.<em> The Frequency of Magic </em>(2019) depicts Trinidad through one-hundred chapters, each exactly one thousand words long. Rather than a single protagonist, the novel features dozens of recurrent narrators, often retelling images from previous chapters in new contexts, which create momentary footholds for the reader navigating their way through the complex and fragmented narrative.</p>
<div id="attachment_4566" style="width: 614px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gallagher-bird-in-hand-t12450" rel="attachment wp-att-4566"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4566" data-attachment-id="4566" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-joseph-boschs-vision/bird-in-hand-2006-by-ellen-gallagher-born-1965/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand.jpg" data-orig-size="1536,1192" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Bird in Hand 2006 Ellen Gallagher born 1965 Presented anonymously 2007 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T12450&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;(c) Ellen Gallagher / Photo (c) Tate&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Bird in Hand 2006 by Ellen Gallagher born 1965&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Gallagher &amp;#8211; Bird in Hand" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;Bird in Hand, Ellen Gallagher, 2006, Photo: © Tate, London 2020.&lt;br /&gt;
Joseph’s The African Origins of UFOs, like Ellen Gallagher’s Bird in Hand, is an Afrofuturist engagement with the black diaspora: surreal, otherworldly, and fractured across time.&lt;/p&gt;
" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;Bird in Hand, Ellen Gallagher, 2006, Photo: © Tate, London 2020.&lt;br /&gt;
Joseph’s The African Origins of UFOs, like Ellen Gallagher’s Bird in Hand, is an Afrofuturist engagement with the black diaspora: surreal, otherworldly, and fractured across time.&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand-300x233.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand-1024x795.jpg" class="wp-image-4566 size-large" title="Gallagher - Bird in Hand" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand-1024x795.jpg" alt="Emma Gallagher's artwork, 'Bird in Hand'" width="604" height="469" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand-1024x795.jpg 1024w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand-300x233.jpg 300w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand-768x596.jpg 768w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gallagher-Bird-in-Hand.jpg 1536w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-4566" class="wp-caption-text">Bird in Hand, Ellen Gallagher, 2006, Photo: <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gallagher-bird-in-hand-t12450">© Tate</a>, London 2020. <br />Joseph’s The African Origins of UFOs, like Ellen Gallagher’s Bird in Hand, is an Afrofuturist engagement with the black diaspora: surreal, otherworldly, and fractured across time.</p></div>
<p>This style is most evident in Joseph’s Afrofuturist debut novel, <em>The African Origins of UFOs </em>(2006). Praised by Kamau Brathwaite and <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/linton-kwesi-johnson/">Linton Kwesi Johnson</a>, <em>Origins </em>is a narrative of twenty-four chapters divided across three intersecting sections. The first is set in Kunu Supia, a space colony of the Caribbean diaspora in the year 3053; the second takes place in present-day Trinidad; and the third offers a Caribbean creation myth of Trinidad set in a folkloric past. The overall narrative <a href="http://africanclothesandimports.com/uploads/3/4/1/0/34105909/3936934.jpg">mimics the image of the Sankofa</a> – the melding of past, present, and future into one shared form. In this way it explores the alienation and tensions within a diaspora ‘lost in space, drifting from place to place, still trying to find where they come from’ (137).</p>
<p>In a British cultural context in which nostalgia thrives, Anthony Joseph’s poetry and prose are sources of constant formal innovation that resists the mainstream while also engrossing readers through its otherness.</p>
<p><em>—Christopher J. Griffin, 2020</em></p>
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<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: Griffin, Christopher J. “[scf-post-title].” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2020, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-joseph-boschs-vision/" rel="noopener noreferrer">&#8216;A close-reading of Anthony Joseph’s &#8220;Bosch’s Vision&#8221; from <em>Bird Head Son (2009)</em>&#8216;, an original essay by Christopher J. Griffin (2020)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xp15m" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Anthony Joseph, <em>Kitch!</em>, BBC Radio 4 (2015)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB_Xzi_7DZM">Prodcrossover, Anthony Joseph Interview, <em>Paris 2012</em> (2012)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CvwiDXwKrU" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Anthony Joseph, &#8216;People of the Sun&#8217; EPK &#8211; Chapter 1: Origins, <em>Heavenly Sweetness</em>, YouTube (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hauD2NqdvAY" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Anthony Joseph, &#8216;People of the Sun (feat. John John Francis)&#8217;, <em>Heavenly Sweetness</em>, YouTube (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/anthony-joseph" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">British Council Literature profile of Joseph</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://hannahsilva.co.uk/a-bit-of-talk-with-anthony-joseph/">Hannah Silva, ‘A bit of talk – Anthony Joseph’, <em>Hannah Silva</em> (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lexmeTirrfQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&#8216;Anthony Joseph – The Frequency of Magic&#8217;, <em>Goldsmiths Art</em> (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://www.wasafiri.org/article/wasafiri-wonders-anthony-joseph/">Wasafiri Editor, ‘Wasafiri Wonders: Anthony Joseph’, <em>Wasafiri</em> (5 December 2020)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="http://cordite.org.au/reviews/alizadeh-joseph/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ali Alizadeh, ‘Ali Alizadeh Reviews Anthony Joseph’, <em>Cordite Poetry Review</em> (8 March 2007)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://www.anthonyjoseph.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Anthony Joseph&#8217;s official site</a></td>
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<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<h3>Poetry</h3>
<p><em>Rubber Orchestras </em>(2011)</p>
<p><em>Bird Head Son </em>(2009)</p>
<p><em>Teragaton</em> (1998)</p>
<p><em>Desafinado</em> (1994)</p>
<h3>Fiction</h3>
<p><em>The Frequency of Magic </em>(2019)</p>
<p><em>Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon </em>(2018)</p>
<p><em>The African Origins of UFOs </em>(2006)</p>
<h3>Essays</h3>
<p>‘The Continuous Diaspora: Experimental Practice/s in Contemporary Black British Poetry’, in <em>“Black British Aesthetics Today</em>, ed. R. Victoria Arana (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), pp.150-57.</p>
<h3>Discography</h3>
<p><em>People of the Sun</em> (2018)</p>
<p><em>Caribbean Roots</em> (2016)</p>
<p><em>Time</em> (2014)</p>
<p><em>Live in Bremen</em> (2013)</p>
<p><em>Rubber Orchestras</em> (2011)</p>
<p><em>Bird Head Son</em> (2009)</p>
<p><em>Leggo de Lion</em> (2007)</p>
</div><div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"><a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/adjoseph" data-height="400" data-width="400">Tweets by adjoseph</a><a href="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js</a></div>
</div></div></div></div></div><p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/anthony-joseph/">Anthony Joseph</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4519</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Roger Robinson</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/roger-robinson/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jul 2017 19:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roger Robinson]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=6101</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>Roger Robinson Biography Writing In 2001, Robinson moved from having his poetry printed in a number of influential anthologies – notably, The Fire People (ed. Lemn Sissay, 1998) and The Penguin Book<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/roger-robinson/">Read More...</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/roger-robinson/">Roger Robinson</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<h1 class="wp-block-heading">Roger Robinson</h1>


<div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cuk-MA1FY8w?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>
<h2>Biography</h2>
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<p>Roger Robinson is one of the leading poetic voices of his generation. A self-avowed “British resident with a Trini sensibility”, he was born in Hackney in 1967. After moving with his Trinidadian parents to their homeland at the age of four, he spent fifteen years there, before returning to England to find work. Following a long and successful career as a dub poet and educator, in 2019 he published his magnum opus, <em>A Portable Paradise</em>, which won both the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. A co-founder of London-based international writing collective <a href="https://malikaspoetrykitchen.com/">Malika’s Poetry Kitchen</a>, he is also the current frontman of musical group <a href="https://kingmidassoundmusic.com/">King Midas Sound</a>.</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>I want my writing to energize, provoke thoughts, discussions, smiles, and make listeners have inner monologues with themselves. That&#8217;s why I write.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—Roger Robinson</p>
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<h2>Writing</h2>
<div id="attachment_6102" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/?attachment_id=6102" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-3188 noreferrer"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6102" data-attachment-id="6102" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/roger-robinson/king-midas-sound-roma-16-settembre-2010/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roger-robinson.jpg" data-orig-size="800,533" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;4.5&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Riccardo Frabotta&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;KING MIDAS SOUND\r\nCircolo degli Artisti\r\nRoma 16 Settembre 2010&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1284678659&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Riccardo Frabotta&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;154&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;1600&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.025&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;KING MIDAS SOUND Roma 16 Settembre 2010&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="A black and white portrait of Roger Robinson performing on-stage as part of King Midas Sound" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;Roger Robinson performing with King Midas Sound, Rome, 2010 (Photo: Riccardo Frabotta, CC BY-ND 2.0)&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roger-robinson-300x200.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roger-robinson.jpg" class="wp-image-6102 size-medium" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roger-robinson-300x200.jpg" alt="A black and white portrait of Roger Robinson performing on-stage as part of King Midas Sound" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roger-robinson-300x200.jpg 300w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roger-robinson-768x512.jpg 768w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/roger-robinson.jpg 800w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-6102" class="wp-caption-text">Roger Robinson performing with King Midas Sound, Rome, 2010 (Photo: Riccardo Frabotta, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-ND 2.0</a>)</p></div>
<p>In 2001, Robinson moved from having his poetry printed in a number of influential anthologies – notably, <em>The Fire People</em> (ed. Lemn Sissay, 1998) and <em>The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain</em> (2000) – to publishing his own debut collection of short stories, <em>Adventures in 3D</em>. Since then, he has published two short pamphlets of poetry, <em>Suitcase </em>(2004) and <em>Suckle </em>(2009), and two full-sized volumes of verse, <em>The Butterfly Hotel </em>(2013) and <em>A Portable Paradise </em>(2019). While the former was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Poetry Prize, it was the latter work and the acclaim it won which ultimately cemented Robinson’s status as one of the top poets currently writing in English.</p>
<p>Termed ‘deep, mature, moving and inventive’ by <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/bernardine-evaristo/">Bernardine Evaristo</a>, <em>A Portable Paradise </em>represents the culmination of the aesthetic which Robinson developed over the preceding three decades: his verse utilises a diverse range of forms, sourced from all over the world, while prioritising orality, after the manner of Spoken Word.</p>
<p>Structurally, Robinson divides his two full-length collections into several parts, interlinked through a unifying image. In <em>A Portable Paradise</em>, all five sections culminate in a poem addressing the titular theme, while, in <em>The Butterfly Hotel,</em> a monarch butterfly recurs throughout, its journey emblematic of the volume’s migratory theme.</p>
<p>In terms of content, throughout his career, Robinson has shown an unerring willingness to shine a light on even the darkest of contemporary issues. In his view, the vocation of a poet involves “translating trauma into something people can face”. For this reason, in recent years, he has written on a wide range of subjects generally considered difficult and even taboo, from the Windrush scandal to the premature birth of his son.</p>
<p><em>—Gavin Herbertson, 2021</em></p>
<hr />
<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: Herbertson, Gavin. “Roger Robinson.” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2021, https://writersmakeworlds.com/roger-robinson/. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
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<div class="tx-row  tx-fwidth" style=""><div class="tx-fw-inner" style="background-color: #e00086; background-attachment: fixed; background-size: auto; "><div class="tx-fw-overlay" style="padding-bottom:32px; padding-top:32px; background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.2);"><div class="tx-fw-content">
<div class="resources">
<h2>Resources</h2>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-robinson-a-portable-paradise/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Short essay: An analysis of Roger Robinson&#8217;s <em>A Portable Paradise</em>, by Gavin Herbertson (2021)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/as-if-their-bodies-became-air-roger-robinson-in-oxford/" rel="noopener noreferrer">“As if their bodies became AIR”: Roger Robinson in Oxford, 23 May 2024, by Clara Park (2024)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/clara-park-interviews-roger-robinson/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Clara Park interviews Roger Robinson (2024)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-text-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/13/roger-robinson-dub-poet-ts-eliot-prize" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sian Cain: &#8216;British-Trinidadian dub poet Roger Robinson wins TS Eliot prize&#8217;, <em>The Guardian</em> (2020)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/16/ts-eliot-prize-winner-roger-robinson" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TS Eliot prize-winner Roger Robinson: ‘I want these poems to help people to practise empathy’&#8217;, interview with Claire Armitstead, <em>The Guardian</em> (2020)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-audio-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2019/jul/09/intolerance-is-rising-in-europe-but-can-writers-find-hope-books-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Johny Pitts and Roger Robinson: Intolerance is rising in Europe, but can writers find hope?, <em>The Guardian books podcast</em> (2019)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-audio-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06b5f5r" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Survivor (For The Grenfell Survivors) by Robinson, Sanders, and Vince, <em>Late Junction</em>, BBC Radio 3 (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://repeatingislands.com/2020/06/15/roger-robinson-poets-can-translate-trauma/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Roger Robinson: &#8216;Poets can translate trauma&#8217;, interview with Anita Sethi, <em>Repeating Islands</em> (2020) </a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://thequietus.com/articles/18213-roger-robinson-interview" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reading The Riot Act: Roger Robinson Interviewed, interview with Neil Kulkarni, <em>The Quietus</em> (2015) </a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://malikaspoetrykitchen.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Malika&#8217;s Poetry Kitchen</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://rogerrobinsononline.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Roger Robinson&#8217;s official site</a></td>
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</table>
</div>
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<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<h3>Poetry</h3>
<p><i>A Portable Paradise </i>(2019)</p>
<p><em>The Butterfly Hotel </em>(2013)</p>
<p><em>Suckle </em>(2009)</p>
<p><em>Suitcase </em>(2005)</p>
<h3>Short fiction</h3>
<p><em>Adventures in 3D</em> (2001)</p>
<h3>Albums</h3>
<p><em>Dog Heart City </em>(2017)</p>
<p><em>Dis Side Ah Town </em>(2015)</p>
<p><em>illclectica </em>(2004)</p>
</div><div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"><a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/rrobinson72" data-height="400" data-width="400">Tweets by rrobinson72</a><a href="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js</a></div>
</div></div></div></div></div><p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/roger-robinson/">Roger Robinson</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Benjamin Zephaniah</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/benjamin-zephaniah/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Jul 2017 17:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Drama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Profiles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benjamin Zephaniah]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=3925</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>The artist and activist Benjamin Zephaniah was born in Birmingham to Caribbean parents. His mother, a Jamaican Windrush immigrant, recalls Zephaniah and his twin sister’s date of birth...<br />
<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/benjamin-zephaniah/">Profile and resources</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/benjamin-zephaniah/">Benjamin Zephaniah</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<h1 class="wp-block-heading">Benjamin Zephaniah</h1>


<div class="tx-youtube-outerwarp" style="width: 100%"><div class="tx-youtube-warp" style=""><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L1mIEXUDgXI?controls=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;rel=0&amp;autoplay=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>
<h2>Biography</h2>
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<p>The artist and activist Benjamin Zephaniah (1958–2023) was born in Birmingham to Caribbean parents. His mother, a Jamaican Windrush immigrant, recalls Zephaniah and his twin sister’s date of birth as 15 March 1958, while official documents record 15 April. Having been moved frequently as a child and expelled repeatedly from school, he spent time in Borstal training while a teenager. Zephaniah honed his performance skills as a blues party ‘toaster’ in the early 1970s, and published his first collection of poetry, <em>Pen Rhythm</em>, while living in London in 1979. He subsequently produced several prize-winning plays, collections of poetry, musical records, novels for teenagers and children’s books. Zephaniah rejected an OBE in 2003, for its imperial connotations, and refused nomination to become the UK poet laureate. He was a confirmed vegan and a Kung Fu practitioner.</p>
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<blockquote>
[W]hat characterises all of Zephaniah’s writing to date [&#8230;] is its stress on the redemptive forces of love, laughter, and peace.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">—<a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/benjamin-zephaniah" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">James Procter</a></p>
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<h2>Writing</h2>
<div id="attachment_3927" style="width: 246px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Zephaniah_20181206.jpg" target="_blank" rel="attachment noopener wp-att-3188 noreferrer"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3927" data-attachment-id="3927" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/benjamin-zephaniah/benjamin-zephaniah-2/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/benjamin-zephaniah.jpg" data-orig-size="512,650" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="benjamin zephaniah" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;benjamin zephaniah&lt;/p&gt;
" data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;benjamin zephaniah&lt;/p&gt;
" data-medium-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/benjamin-zephaniah-236x300.jpg" data-large-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/benjamin-zephaniah.jpg" class="wp-image-3927 size-medium" src="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/benjamin-zephaniah-236x300.jpg" alt="Benjamin Zephaniah, Waterstones, Piccadilly, London, 6 December 2018" width="236" height="300" srcset="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/benjamin-zephaniah-236x300.jpg 236w, https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/benjamin-zephaniah.jpg 512w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-3927" class="wp-caption-text">Benjamin Zephaniah, Waterstones, Piccadilly, London, 6 December 2018, Edwardx <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span class="cc-license-identifier">(CC BY-SA 4.0)</span></a> via Wikimedia Commons</p></div>
<p><a href="https://brill.com/view/title/27899">Christian Habekost</a> describes dub poetry – Zephaniah’s chief genre – as an ‘artful fusion’ of ‘oral and text media, singing and talking, music and literature’, with patterned ‘riddim’ its ‘central formative aspect.’ Zephaniah’s first EP, <em>Dub Ranting</em> (1982), reflects this fusion, integrating the ‘ranting’ of predominantly white British punk performers with black Caribbean-influenced dub music, <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/essay-johnson-bass-culture/">which itself merges reggae and spoken word</a>. <em>Pen Rhythm</em> (1979), his first collection of poetry, was published by the London left-wing cooperative bookstore, activist space and vegetarian food shop Whole Thing. While describing himself as ‘a mixture of England and Jamaica, but mostly England,’ Zephaniah is often critical of English society, situating his work in opposition to racial and ethnic discrimination. Heavily involved in the Brixton Riots of the mid-1980s, his poetry collections including the <em>Dread Affair</em> (1986), <em>City Psalms</em> (1992), and <em>Too Black, Too Strong</em> (2001) are prominently concerned with black identity and activism. He has written several poems in remembrance of those killed as a consequence of racism and xenophobia, including Joy Gardner, Stephen Lawrence and Steve Biko.</p>
<p>Zephaniah’s poetry is centrally and sometimes searingly concerned with personal struggles, including his own divorce and infertility. His fourth collection, <em>Propa Propaganda</em> (1996), ends with the chilling lines:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There must be a baby<br />In there<br />Somewhere,<br />There must be<br />A baby<br />In here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His most celebrated work for children, <em>Talking Turkeys</em>, brings together short rhyming poems that humorously muse on the plight of fearful animals and mistreated children. Bob Mole describes the wit in Zephaniah’s work as a ‘strong flail’ which ‘even if it doesn’t bring change, makes the laugher feel better for a while’. Marketed at teenagers, Zephaniah’s novels are modelled on young outcasts and immigrants. The satirical film <em>Dread Poets Society</em> (1992) – starring Alan Cumming, Emma Fielding and Timothy Spall alongside Zephaniah – is a self-conscious reflection on Zephaniah’s place in the academy. He has also appeared in multiple radio programmes and television documentaries. In the 1920s period drama <em>Peaky Blinders</em> he plays Jeremiah Jesus, an ex-military preacher and gangster.</p>
<p>Zephaniah continues to travel widely for performances (once performing on five continents in twenty days), and has maintained a sustained interest in global politics. <em>City Psalms</em> alone contains reference to political struggles in Australia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Kurdistan, Mali, Palestine, the United States and the imagined communities of ‘Utopia’ and ‘McDonalds’. As a frequent and willing collaborator, one of his most genre-bending productions, <em>Naked</em> (2005), contains authorised prints of Banksy artworks in the poetic liner-notes accompanying a musical record. Zephaniah’s later writing has turned to teaching and reflecting on his own life and work. He dedicates his autobiography, <em>The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah</em>, to himself:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And why not?<br />There was a time I thought I wouldn’t live to thirty.<br />I doubled that and now I’m sixty.<br />Well done, Rastaman, you’re a survivor.<br />A black survivor.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>—Robert Freeman, 2020</em></p>
<hr />
<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: Freeman, Robert. “[scf-post-title].” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2020, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/video-art-action-benjamin-zephaniah-in-conversation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Art &amp; Action: Benjamin Zephaniah in Conversation, Oxford, 24 June 2021</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-OtLgQtLMQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Interview with Benjamin Zephaniah, Apples and Snakes (2018)</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://poetrysociety.org.uk/education/page-fright/benjamin-zephaniah/">The Poetry Society&#8217;s Pagefright resources on Zephaniah, including writing resources and video of the poet reading &#8216;Rong Radio Station&#8217; and Dylan Thomas&#8217;s &#8216;Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night&#8217; </a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-file-video-o fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://benjaminzephaniah.com/videos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Videos of Zephaniah performing several poems, <em>benjaminzephaniah.com</em></a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://media.bloomsbury.com/rep/files/BenjaminZephania_readingGuide.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Gangsta Rap</em> and <em>Refugee Boy</em> resource pack for KS3 teachers from Bloomsbury</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-comments fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/oct/14/benjamin-zephaniah-interview-terror-kid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Zephaniah interviewed by DG Readers, <em>The Guardian </em>(2014)</a></td>
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<td width="30"> <i class="fa fa-link fa-2x " ></i></td>
<td width="570"><a href="https://benjaminzephaniah.com/">Benjamin Zephaniah&#8217;s official website</a></td>
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<h2>Bibliography</h2>
<p><em>The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah</em> (2018)</p>
<p><em>Terror Kid</em> (2014)</p>
<p><em>When I Grow Up</em> (2011)</p>
<p><em>Benjamin Zephaniah: My Story </em>(2011)</p>
<p><em>Face: The Play</em> (2008)</p>
<p><em>Listen to Your Parents</em> Playscript (2007)</p>
<p><em>Teacher’s Dead</em> (2007)</p>
<p><em>J is for Jamaica</em> (World Alphabet) (2006)</p>
<p><em>Chambers Primary Rhyming Dictionary</em> (2004)</p>
<p><em>Gangsta Rap</em> (2004)</p>
<p><em>We Are Britain!</em> (2002)</p>
<p><em>Refugee Boy</em> (2001)</p>
<p><em>Too Black, Too Strong</em> (2001)</p>
<p><em>A Little Book of Vegan Poems</em> (2000)</p>
<p><em>Wicked World</em> (2000)</p>
<p><em>The Bloomsbury Book of Love Poems</em> (1999)</p>
<p><em>Face</em> (1999)</p>
<p><em>School’s Out: Poems Not for School</em> (1997)</p>
<p><em>Funky Chickens</em> (1996)</p>
<p><em>Propa Propaganda</em> (1996)</p>
<p><em>Talking Turkeys</em> (1994)</p>
<p><em>City Psalms</em> (1992)</p>
<p><em>Rasta Time in Palestine</em> (1990)</p>
<p><em>Inna Liverpool</em> (1988)</p>
<p><em>Black Plays: Two</em> (1987)</p>
<p><em>The Dread Affair: Collected Poems</em> (1985)</p>
<p><em>Pen Rhythm</em> (1980)</p>
</div><div class="tx-column tx-column-size-1-2"><a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/BZephaniah" data-height="400" data-width="400">Tweets by BZephaniah</a> <a href="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js">//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js</a></div></div></div></div></div></div><p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/benjamin-zephaniah/">Benjamin Zephaniah</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3925</post-id>	</item>
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		<title>D-Empress Dianne Regisford: ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’</title>
		<link>https://writersmakeworlds.com/d-empress-hersto-rhetoric/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Erica Lombard]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Jan 2017 14:02:11 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured works]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Performance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poetry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Summary, context and history]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[D-Empress Dianne Regisford]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://writersmakeworlds.com/?p=638</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[<p>In a series of seven sculptures created by abstract expressionist artiste D-Empress Dianne Regisford, the multi-sensory performance installation, ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’ is at once an incantation, a lament and an invocation<a class="moretag" href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/d-empress-hersto-rhetoric/">Read More...</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/d-empress-hersto-rhetoric/">D-Empress Dianne Regisford: ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/evaristo-emperors-babe/regisford-5/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="641" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/evaristo-emperors-babe/regisford-5/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/regisford-5.jpg" data-orig-size="478,640" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="regisford 5" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;regisford 5&lt;/p&gt;
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In a series of seven sculptures created by abstract expressionist artiste D-Empress Dianne Regisford, the multi-sensory performance installation, ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’ is at once an incantation, a lament and an invocation for conscious engagement with the rupture of a culturally infused, collective memory of sexuality and sensuality. By fluidly weaving narratives, movement, voice and abstract, unfinished sculptures, the performance installation invites critical explorations of the notion of, ‘la femme libre’ (the liberated woman) from an African feminist perspective.</p>
<p>The works are inspired by what D-Empress describes as a ten-year initiation into teachings and practice of the ancient West African Mandinka <em>badjenne </em>tradition. This tradition is an intergenerational practice where elder women, the <em>badjenne </em>sages, are revered and honoured as the keepers of specifically female traditions who help to shape female identity through rites of passage of the girl child into womanhood. Though vibrantly alive today in different forms amongst Mandinka regions of West Africa and beyond, these traditions are increasingly becoming contested ideological and practice spaces. This becomes particularly pertinent as African women grapple to find belonging and liberation within often contradictory global narratives of femininity, feminism and the idealism of liberation in a globalised world.</p>
<p>D-Empress invites us to look again at the <em>badjenne </em>through a series of unfinished sculptures that create a space to unfold the complex, alchemic crucible of communion, culture and co-creation with the audiences. Believing that no act of creation is ever complete, D-Empress offers the unfinished works as an invocation to those sharing in the performance to move beyond merely receiving to sharing and co-creating.</p>
<p>The immersive installation, she suggests, may be an African-anchored pathway to a re-enchantment of romance, of seduction, of living, leading us away from a world bent on equality of the sexes into a space where we may ask different questions of ourselves. In such a space, the possibility arises of crafting futures that move beyond the binary bastions in which we so often become entrenched.</p>
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<h2><span style="font-size: 30px;"><strong>D-Empress Dianne Regisford</strong></span></h2>
<p><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dianne-regisford-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="643" data-permalink="https://writersmakeworlds.com/d-empress-hersto-rhetoric/dianne-regisford-1/" data-orig-file="https://writersmakeworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dianne-regisford-1-e1494256263329.jpg" data-orig-size="1341,1392" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="dianne regisford 1 e1494256263329" data-image-description="&lt;p&gt;dianne regisford 1 e1494256263329&lt;/p&gt;
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<p>D-Empress Dianne Regisford is a multi-sensory, contemporary artiste invested in artistic enquiry, which creates spaces for cultural and poetic acts of encounter. Her artistic practice includes the visual arts (painting, sculpture), poetry and performance, and pivots around ideas of voice, participation and representation of women in the African-Caribbean diaspora.</p>
<p>Inspired by cultural and spiritual systems of Africa and her diaspora, D’Empress’s creations ‘churn the soul soil of identity, heritage, mythology and humanity, excavating narratives as pathways to social renewal’. She works with the socio-cultural fabric of diaspora voice, (re)constructed identity and sense of place in urban spaces, and is also particularly interested in the experiences of African feminist perspectives of gender, sexuality and sensuality.</p>
<p>D-Empress’s works weave sensory narratives that evoke, tie and sometimes knot threads of the cultured, the indigenous and the contemporary in the social fabric of urban spaces across the African-Caribbean diaspora.</p>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/video-d-empress-dianne-regisford-hersto-rhetoric/">Video of D-Empress Dianne Regisford performing ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’ and discussing the work with Erica Lombard, Great Writers Inspire at Home, 25 May 2017</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/d-empress-hersto-rhetoric/hersto-rhetoric-digital/" rel="attachment wp-att-654">D-Empress Dianne Regisford, digital chapbook featuring the poems ‘Flower Me Free’, ‘Waist Bead Serenade’ and ‘Foibles’</a></td>
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<td width="570"><a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/extract-hersto-rhetoric/">Annotatable poem, ‘Waist Bead Serenade’ from ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’</a></td>
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<p><strong><i class="fa fa-tag " ></i> Cite this: “[scf-post-title].” <em>Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds</em>, 2017, [scf-post-permalink]. Accessed 14 February 2026.</strong></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/d-empress-hersto-rhetoric/">D-Empress Dianne Regisford: ‘Hersto-rhetoric? Na so today!!!’</a> appeared first on <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com">writers make worlds</a>.</p>
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