The Arvon Foundation in association with Peepal Tree Press
Very few tickets remaining. Please call 020 7324 2554 to book as tickets may not be available on the door.
This exclusive event is an opportunity to be the first to hear readings from hot new poetry anthology: Red. On a rare visit to the UK, Editor Kwame Dawes will be joined by poets Bernardine Evaristo, Patience Agbabi and Simon Murray to introduce this rich and vital collection.
Red is published by Inscribe, a new imprint of Peepal Tree. Featuring Jackie Kay, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Linton Kwesi Johnson and many other familiar and new voices, Red vividly illustrates the glowing diversity of Black British poetry.
All the poems have been written with the word 'red' in mind. Sometimes it is linked with sensuality and sexuality; sometimes it evokes a memory or mood, the colour of skin or the sound of a song. And of course red finds its usual associations with blood, passion and anger.
'Perhaps the most significant thing to be said about Red is that the poets in this volume burst through any constraining label with writing that throbs and pulses and seeps and flows.' Margaret Busby
Bernardine Evaristo’s books include three novels that fuse poetry and fiction: Lara, The Emperor’s Babe, Soul Tourists and a prose novel Blonde Roots. She is a mentor on the 2010 Jerwood / Arvon mentoring scheme and will be tutoring a Fiction course at Lumb Bank in August.
Kwame Dawes is a poet, novelist, critic and Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. He has been the literary programmer of the Calabash festival in Jamaica for the past ten years. In 2009 he won an Emmy Award in the category New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle and Culture.
Patience Agbabi is one of the UK's Next Generation poets. Her most recent collection is Transformatrix. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Kent.
Simon Murray (Sai Mu Rai) is a writer, artist and graphic designer. The first part of his debut novel Kill Myself Now: The True Confessions of an Advertising Genius is published as a chap book. His poetry, essays and short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.
HOW TO BOOK
7pm, Thursday 18 February @ Free Word, 60 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3GA
Doors open 6.30pm. Tickets are £10 and include a glass of wine.
To book call 020 7324 2554
