Category: Participants

Hannah Hodgon is an award-winning poet and a palliative care patient. In her compelling debut collection 163 Days, she uses a panoply of medical, legal, and personal vocabularies to explore what illness, death and dying does to a person as both patient and witness.

Jo Clement is a writer, editor, and educator.  Jo holds a practice-led Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Newcastle University and was awarded an inaugural AHRC Northern Bridge scholarship. She is currently a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Northumbria University (Leverhulme 2021-2022). In 2012 she received a Northern Writers’ Award (New Writing North) selected by Paul… Continue reading Jo Clement

John Agard was born in Georgetown, Guyana. His love of language began in school where his favourite subjects were English, French and Latin. His collections include Half Caste (2005), We Brits (2006) Clever Backbone (2009), Alternative Anthem (2009) Travel Light Travel Dark (2013), Playing the Ghost of Maimonides (2016) and The Coming of the Little… Continue reading John Agard

Grace Nichols was born and brought up in Guyana. After working there as a teacher and journalist, she came to Britain in 1977. Her first collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. She has published many books of poetry for both adults and children, including the bestselling, The Fat Black… Continue reading Grace Nichols

Jason Allen-Paisant is from a village called Coffee Grove in Manchester, Jamaica. At present, he’s a lecturer in Caribbean Poetry & Decolonial Thought in the School of English at the University of Leeds, where he’s also the Director of the Institute for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies. He serves on the editorial board of Callaloo: Journal… Continue reading Jason Allen Paisant

Stand-up poet and lo-fi theatremaker Jonny Fluffypunk has been dragging his art around the UK and occasionally beyond for over 20 years, deafly fusing bittersweet autobiography, disillusionment and wonder into an act that has established him as a firm favourite at gigs, festivals and housing benefit offices everywhere. He has two volumes of poems, micro-fictions… Continue reading Johnny Fluffypunk

Roger Robinson is a writer who has performed worldwide.  He is the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019, RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020 and RSL Fellow.  He was chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the Black-British writing canon.  His latest collection ‘A Portable Paradise’ was a New Statesman book of… Continue reading Roger Robinson

Yomi is an award-winning Nigerian British writer. He is a recipient of the Jerwood Compton Poetry fellowship 2019 and was shortlisted for The Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021. Yomi has been published in magazines such as The Poetry Review, Rialto Magazine, Bath Magg and Magma. He is a performer, facilitator, trustee, member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen and a Complete Works Alumni.… Continue reading Yomi Sode

Helen Bowell is London-based poet, producer and arts administrator. She is an Education Officer at The Poetry Society, and runs its Young Poets Network and Poets in Schools programmes. She is also a co-director of Dead [Women] Poets Society, a live literature organisation that ‘resurrects’ women poets of the past. Helen is a Ledbury Poetry… Continue reading Helen Bowell

Kris Johnson is from Seattle, Washington. She holds a PhD in creative writing from Newcastle University for a creative and critical thesis that explores the relationship between deep ecology, the nature essay and poetry. In 2019, she was awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant from Arts Council England. Her poetry has appeared in journals… Continue reading Kris Johnson