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Scarlett Ward

Scarlett Ward is a black country Poet, performer, and workshop facilitator, working from Staffordshire. Her poetry focuses on the issues revolving around mental health, recovery, and what it means to find love for another whilst still uncovering love for one’s self. She has a real ear for language, and an imagination to match. At times as light as petals, at others, as heavy and violent as a hobnail boot.

She is an Assistant writer for Writing West Midlands, and Editor of On Your Doorstep magazine in association with Homegrown 31.

She has been nominated for Best Spoken Word Poet by Sabotage awards in 2019 and came runner up in Wolverhampton Literature Festival, Mother’s Milk Poetry Prize, and Lord Whiskey Poetry Prize. She has featured on Brum Radio and People’s Poetry Podcast.

ACHE

Scarlett’s debut collection “ache” was published in 2019 and was put forward for a Forward Prize by Verve in the same year. Her work has recently features in Under The Radar magazine by Nine Arches press, Eyeflash Press, and Fly on the Wall Press. Her poem, X, featured inside, was included in the first Verve Poetry Press Anthology, Wild Dreams and Louder Voices – The Poetry Jam Anthology edited by Anisa Haghdadi.

“ache is a breathtaking collection of healing and rebirth. Scarlett writes in away that makes me want to live more deeply"

Chloe Frayne

Her poem Culling Season was short-listed in the Verve Poetry Festival Competition on theme of Community judged by Joelle Taylor and features in the accompanying anthology Closed Gates and Open Arms. She came runner up in the Wolverhampton Literature Festival 2019 as Judged by Roy McFarlane, and has featured on ‘Brum Radio’ and ‘People’s Poetry podcast’.

Ache is a Verve Poetry Press bestselling title.

SAMPLE POEM

Culling season

Somewhere in a town that is best known
for how deep it has dug beneath itself,
where the addresses are earthy like “May Dene” and “Old Fallow”,
and roads fling themselves lethargically around woodland bends,
a pot hole rips the gut out of an exhaust on an accelerating Ford
with all the viciousness of antlers on bark. After all, it is rutting season,
and it’s all I can think of lately; feuding stags butting skulls,
concrete tearing out metal piping,
and the way my neighbour boasted to me this morning
of the fawn he shot through the eye socket

More from Scarlett!

More Verve Poetry Press Authors:

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Kamil Mahmood

Kamil Mahmood is a Poet, Spoken Word and Visual Artist born and raised in Birmingham His work explores identity, community, Islam, the British Pakistani Diaspora, masculinity and international activism. He combines contemporary commentary with narratives of the often overlooked and unheard, championing words as tools for change.

He has worked with organizations including Beatfreeks, Birmingham REP, Ummahsonic, Sampad, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and has perfomed with Out-Spoken, live on BBC Asian Network, at the Midlands Arts Centre, the Birmingham Hippodrome, Ikon Gallery as well as Cheltenham and Verve Poetry Festivals. He has been described as a wordsmith of the ages whose lyrics permeate the zeitgeist and a promising prospect for the UK Poetry scene.

Kamil’s thrilling debut collection, Mute Men articulates the author’s musings born on late bus journeys and silent morning car trips with his Dad.

Kamil focuses on narratives of the often side-lined, within the microcosm of the Muslim immigrant majority area that raised him as well as internationally, exploring the fallout of colonialism, war and displacement. The collection is a brutally honest collage of disconnect, of a boy stumbling into manhood; processing a strayed history whilst probing his place in the world.

‘A powerful and timely collection exploring the tension carries by many British South Asian men. Kamil’s poems are steeped in empathy and dazzling lyricism as he interroagets

race, masculinity and religion within his community. This is an important piece of British poetry.’ Caleb Femi

‘The equivalent of sitting in your nani’s kitchen, sipping chai, eating samoseh with chutney, chit chatting, reminiscing, debating, challenging, mind and mouth wide open, ready for the next morsel of knowledge to be handed down, His work is daring and unapolagetic, his style closely connected to his roots (Birmingham and Pakistan); his ideas brazen. At times difficult to digest, Kamil’s debut collection is one I will be coming back to time and time again.’ Nafeesa Hamid

Number 6

Doors slam themselves awake
knees scuttle steps tiptoeing insects.

I haste along the thick of it
pace to a place that’ll displace me
out of the routine.

White flag a bus to bring colour to this grey.
In mind’s eye spark hills, brooks and green halls.
surely the sullied hull of this ship will last
but touch wood the polaroids don’t develop too fast

I’m running
no faster than 30 MPH
amber lights contemplation
red lights meditation
vibrating laps and sweat clothed backs the sensation

This microcosm might cost 4.20
but this trip could be the day saver
Stay in your own lane
Poles and pockets

Foreign tongues wafting their scents
breeding the environment with their own
and in a split second it’s not a bus
It’s a boat or a PIA aeroplane
and it’s time share.

Hijabs and turbans and crucifixes
Masjids meet gurdwaras greet churches

Side by side in tessellation
Unknown in their piloted utopia

On a road that’s more like an aorta.

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Yasmina Nuny

YASMINA NUNY is a poet from Guinea-Bissau. She was born in Portugal and was brought up in different African countries before going to the UK for her studies.

She began performing in 2016 at open mic events around Birmingham and owes a lot to the second city for her development as an artist. She has since been featured at events like Heaux Noire (London), Funkenteleky (Birmingham) and the Verve Poetry Festival R.A.P. Party (Birmingham).

Yasmina has also had her poetry published in two other Verve collections – The Poetry Jam Anthology Wild Dreams & Louder Voices (2018) and Nafeesa Hamid’s Besharam (2018).

Yasmina Nuny’s debut, Anos Ku Ta Manda, is as fresh and vital as her performance style. She writes both in English and Kriol, her mother tongue, to portray plural and untranslatable existences.

Her collection – so powerful – begins with an exploration of her country Guinea-Bissau, that remains accessible through language and family. Following this welcome into her home, Yasmina offers a more intimate reading of her musings and experiences of love and relationships. The final voice that we find in the collection is a political one, exploring both the trauma and joys of Black womanhood. Anos Ku Ta Manda is defiant and the experiences it explores are informed by Yasmina’s relationship with God.

This collection also feature guest poems from up and coming poets Darnell Thompson-Gooden and Ayo.

SAMPLE POEM: Free

I have loved myself to this

place.

To this state.

Enough to preserve when needed,

cry when needed,

war when needed.

Shave, regrow, rebirth

as needed.

Bloom where it is possible,

learn from all of it.

Unlearn to apologize for it –

for

myself.

We been there already,

done that already.

No longer at peace with disrespecting

God

like that.

SAMPLE VIDEO:

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Katrina Naomi

It’s wonderful to be able to welcome the amazing Katrina Naomi to our poetry family! Her reading at the first every Verve Festival was incredible and we have been in touch ever since! We knew something amazing would come out of her Arts Council funded trip to discover the poetry of Japan, but never thought we would be publishing the resulting pamphlet! Needless to say, it is more than equal to the high standards she has set in her previous work (incl our favourite, The Way the Crocodile Taught Me).

Katrina Naomi is a powerful poet based in Penzance with two collections and three other pamphlets to her name. In 2018 she received a BBC commission for National Poetry Day. Her poetry has appeared in The TLS, Poetry London, The Poetry Review and The Forward Book of Poetry 2017, as well as on BBC TV’s Spotlight and Radio 4’s Front Row and Poetry Please. Her latest collection, The Way the Crocodile Taught Me (Seren, 2016) was chosen by Foyles’ Bookshop as one of its #FoylesFive for poetry. Katrina was the first writer-in-residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in W Yorks. She has a PhD in creative writing (Goldsmiths) and tutors for Arvon, Ty Newydd and the Poetry Society.

In 2018 she spent six weeks in Japan – funded by the Arts Council and the British Council – walking in the footsteps of haiku master Bashõ and immersing herself in Japanese poetry. The result is a beautiful chapbook titled Typhoon Etiquette.

The poems inside at once depict Japan, its traditions, its customs with great enthusiasm and some puzzlement. Katrina doesn’t pretend she is an expert but prods and questions not only what she finds but also herself.

Also included are Katrina’s translations of Haiku by two Japanese masters, which have previously been published in Modern Poetry in Translation magazine. Altogether, this is Katrina trying something new, but with the quality, the wonderful way with words that characterises all her work.

This item is also available as an EPUB download. To order this, please go HERE

Sample Poem: In a Plum Grove

The plums are from all over Japan
I won’t eat them
but admire their shapely leaves
which are clinging on
in this typhoon
I also admire a stream surging through
Kenrokuen Garden
emboldened

Umbrellas hurry past
the typhoon hasn’t truly hit yet
this is only a taste
By tomorrow there’ll be more
umbrellas on the ground
than plums

Get in touch:

www.katrinanaomi.co.uk

Twitter: @KatrinaNaomi

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Claire Trevien

We are honoured to have esteemed poet Claire Trevien as one of our experimental poetry pamphlet authors. Her Penned In The Margins collection, Asteronyms, is a real favourite of ours. Her idiosyncratic poetic vision, in English pulled from the depths of a French mind, is often gobsmacking, painfully entertaining.

Claire Trévien is a British-Breton writer currently living in Brittany, France. She is the author and editor of several poetry and non-fiction books including The Shipwrecked House, which was longlisted in the Guardian First Book Award, and the remarkable Asteronyms. She was the recipient of a Hawthornden Castle Fellowship in 2018. Trévien founded Sabotage Reviews and the annual Sabotage Awards, which under her guidance has become the single most important prize celebrating the activities of Indie Publishers and Events Organisers in the UK.

Her new pamphlet, Brain Fugue, is as inventive and playful as we’ve come to expect from this glorious poet. Claire can bring concepts, ideas and feeling to life with phrase after startling turn of phrase. She can play with form to create new and exciting ways of placing words on the page.

But as with much play, things can quite easily tip into becoming a more serious kind of struggle. The struggle to feel settled – to understand – and finally, the struggle to find some kind of inner peace. Because lively energy and brilliance can also speak of the frantic attempt to find solutions that are never quite within reach.

This complex, multi-layered pamphlet of poems speaks of the complexity of the human mind as much as it does the complicated mind of this poet. Brain Fugue is an astonishing piece of work. Order your copy here>>>>>>

Sample Poem from Brain Fugue:

Brain as City

As the sky drawstrings to darkness,
                your buildings wake
– raise their skirts out of the gutter
                with an unsteady focus;
the park uproots itself,
                swings to the right,
its eyes two horses on springs,
                its mouth of sand empties.
The river abandons her bed
                tips out into the street,
(which itself has unlocked its jaws,
                the crossroad crumples into
the alley, headlines procreate
                with street signs, “STOP CHICKEN”,
“ORGANIC KING”, “WARNINGLAND”).
                Now, the Ladbrokes rolls out
like a rubber band ball,
              accumulating house numbers.
They lurch forward: bus stops,
                compost bins, roofs of clay, slate, and grit,
doors united into a leg
                (windows leave
the most curious prints behind),
                and they sink deep, and then deeper,
into the mushrooming ground,
                not a spire left
to periscope.

Claire’s incredible film poem Interpunct.

https://www.clairetrevien.co.uk/

Twitter: @CTrevien

Instagram: ctrevien

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Evrah Rose

Introducing Evrah Rose: We are thrilled to announce that Evrah has agreed to let us publish her debut poetry collection this coming Autumn. Evrah Rose is making big waves in her native Wales and beyond, speaking passionately into camera on BBC SESH and kicking up a storm with her ferocious and energetic live performances. On the page, she is able to reproduce this energy (and her unblinking determination to depict difficult subjects) wonderfully. We look forward to supporting this powerful poet as she propels herself further into the poetry stratosphere. Keep your eyes peeled for further announcements.

Evrah Rose is an injustice driven poet and spoken word performer. Hailing from Wrexham, North Wales, Evrah delves in to taboo subject matter, unafraid and unapologetically. Using a mix of her own experiences and perspectives of others, Evrah confronts issues such as rape, mental health, addiction and domestic violence to evoke conversation. Evrah began writing poetry when she was just 9 years old to enable herself to rationalise her experiences. As a result, she became socially conscious and passionate about breaking silence.

Just this year Evrah was commissioned by the BBC to write and create spoken word films and has had her work publicised by BBC 2, 3, 4 and BBC Wales. Evrah has headlined various spoken word events around the North West and has also performed at including Apple’s and Snakes DiVerse #7. As a music lover, Evrah combines both music and poetry to create a contrast that both stimulates and inspires and has subsequently been aired by BBC Radio Wales as part of BBC Introducing.

Evrah’s work is a fusion of no nonsense realism, social injustice and hard hitting truths offering her audience a thought provoking experience that leaves them awakened.

Find Evrah:

Facebook: EvrahRose

Twitter: @evrahrose

Instagram: @evrahrosepoetry

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Helen Calcutt

Helen Calcutt’s introduction to the anthology she instigated in aid of a cause so very close to her heart demands to be read. It eloquently and passionately states her reasoning behind and hopes for this unblinking but hopeful collection of poems and some of the background about CALM’s fight to raise awareness around this important issue. As such, we have decided to reprint it here in its entirety. Read, digest, and then please help by buying this incredible book. Help us help CALM. And most importantly of all, help yourself. Verve Poetry.

A few weeks after my brother Matthew died, my daughter told me she could see his face in the moon.

Days later, when she spied its silver disc in the window again, she said, that actually, it wasn’t just his face she could see. Everyone who had ever been sad was up there.

The moon changes, and so too, do all the people in its glow.

And that was when I realised ….

We all suffer. There’s this idea that the personal blow of death, or a trauma, can’t be relatable. And with society’s insufferable ignorance to human vulnerability (especially male vulnerability) it’s difficult to see how this could ever change. But I feel it can, if we stop the bullshit. If we accept the reality of the human condition – that it’s a diverse, beautiful, troubled, elated, mish-mash of a being – and if we live by its natural demands, we can influence what is considered ‘normal’ behaviour. What currently stands as such has been working against us for generations, and ultimately, brought us to the mental health crisis we find ourselves in today.

There are other factors to this issue – foremost, lack of funds to mental health services. But change starts with the individual, and this is one of the reasons I created this book. I received little-to-no help from any authority or public service after my brother killed himself. The doctor signed me off for three weeks and I was offered pills. What does this do? This response, though an initial kindness, had no relevance whatsoever to the patterns of my complicated grief, and this signalled a twisted understanding of it, or worse, a normalised ignorance to my vulnerability, in all its ugliness and truth. It also exposed a desire to sweep the problem under the carpet. As was the police’s response after my brother was found. Male dead, domestic tragedy. Tick the box. Move on.

It’s my understanding that, at present, society is shaped to deny us our defining human quality: our complexity. To be human is to be vulnerable. It is also to be aggressive, quiet, commandeering, violent; it depends on the circumstance you find yourself in. But these are all naturally existing, powerful sides to us. For whatever reason, society encourages an over-simplified existence, thus generating accepted ‘norms’ to our behaviour. We live, we die. We weep, we laugh. We suffer, we feel joy. It would seem we’re only ready to acknowledge and celebrate three of these six crucial human emotions.

And the desire to live up to this warped standard of being has sadly become greater than the desire for truth.

Women cry, men do not. Men hit women, women don’t hit men. Both examples of what we would consider a socially accepted norm, denies either party their natural complexity. Women do hit men, and though a violent and harmful act, it also highlights a particular type of vulnerability (perhaps a trauma too) that needs addressing. Men weep. It’s probably one of the deepest, moving sounds I have ever heard. Denying this as a normal attribute to male behaviour, almost refuses them the basic right to grieve, to shed a skin – to let it out. Grief isn’t just about death either. The effects of grief and trauma are very present in the body and mind of someone who has suffered divorce. The loss of a life we love, either from sudden house eviction to an extra-marital affair, can take 12 months at the very least, to overcome. We can even grieve, deeply and with absolutely profundity, the loss of our former selves in the wake of any personal travesty.

Not acknowledging the many possibilities, the many realities, to inner turmoil, is damaging. It represses and confuses us. Suicide rates are through the roof in the U.K. Male suicide stats are particularly devastating. 84 men kill themselves a week, my brother being one of them. The reasons why he did it, are complicated. And unknowable to us in many ways. But I will say, that the pressures of a society largely unwilling to accept the anxiety and despair of a ‘man’s man’ (holding down a job, a mortgage, child-care) will have had something to do with it.

The more we work to a fixed behavioural and emotional ‘standard’, the more we squash the natural intricacies of the broader human condition—not honouring or respecting who, and what we are. It’s time we changed that. After putting out the call for submissions and contributions to this anthology, I can see I’m not alone in my thinking.

The many poems I received, felt ready-made. Like they had been waiting at the bottom of a draw for the perfect opportunity and place to speak. I’m glad those who submitted felt this was it. The poems published here, and the adjoining blog, have given this book the truth it was seeking, showcasing humanity in all its vulnerable beauty. From the baby in the bath who knows that daddy is gone, to the woman whose father haunts her like a wolf through the window, anthology Eighty-Four gathers an exquisite collection of voices, singing completely different hymns, but together creating a sincere and authentic piece of music. From well-known poets, to new voices, there’s a glittering strength of character to this volume, because of the honesty from which its poems have been created, courageously and delicately embracing human complexity in all its forms.

I knew immediately the title would be ‘Eighty-Four’. Inspired by the success of the #MeToo anthology, I wanted to create something for a specific cause, that honoured and supported Project 84, by the charity CALM (campaign against living miserably) and drew attention to an issue in the only way I knew how: through poetry. But, for me, this number represents more than a devastating statistic. 84 men lost to suicide a week isn’t a simple black and white problem. And the problem itself, isn’t a symptom of any single cause. It’s part of a wider dilemma, acutely connected to our almost pathological denial of human fragility (connected perhaps, to our fear of immortality and death). If you’re reading this, you may not feel an immediate emotional connection to male suicide. But you can understand the prevalence and seriousness this number holds. You might also start to understand what it means for us as a society, and share in asking the crucial question: how shamefully oppressive have we allowed the world in which we live, to become?

Together, with the creative minds at Verve Poetry Pres, CALM, and my wonderful father and co-editor, we have created a book that, in opening its doors to the devastating theme of male suicide, has inspired a river of additional sub-themes and contexts: all relevant and connected to the central theme. At one stage, I considered grouping the poems under different chapters. But with time, I saw this wasn’t necessary. Anthology Eighty-Four has taken on its own life and shape, with each new phase of reading, though distinct, somehow aligned and in harmony with the one before it. There are poems here that sing to each other. Words and images that relate, yet with their altered backdrops, offering new perspectives. There are clear changes in voice and tone: the angry man, to the angry bereaved. This kind of opposition (or ‘balance’ as I like to call it) gives this anthology the emotional range it deserves, and is an authentic reflection of the overwhelmingly diverse, and sustained affects of suicide. Each poem conducts its own careful truth, told with searing conviction. Light and shade.

This book is for every single person who has ever felt silenced. For anyone who feels uncomfortable talking about trauma or grief, to those currently suffering from grief-by-suicide, or who want to learn more about mental health issues. Let this be your touch-stone. Not only does it prove how powerful poetry can be in bringing our injured worlds into view, it also exposes a new, hopeful reality. Saying to you – start talking and keep going. Live through and voice your vulnerability. Speak and live your humanity.

This book is also for Matthew. The older brother who was always giving. The first one to call me and tell me everything was going to be okay when I was pregnant. Whose laughter filled the room and infected every single person in it. Who was honest about not liking poetry. Who listened, and reserved judgement. Who was open and giving to every other human flaw, right to the end. Just look how this generosity has inspired others and lived on.

Helen Calcutt (December 2018).

Full list of poets included (A-Z): Anthony Anaxagorou, Romalyn Ante, Casey Bailey, Abie Budgen, Lewis Buxton, David Calcutt, Helen Calcutt, Louisa Campbell, Diana Cant, Garry Carr, Stewart Carswell, Gram Joel Davies, Michelle Diaz, Glyn Edwards, Carrie Etter, RM Francis, Alan Girling, Salena Godden, Emily Harrison, John Hawkhead, Martin Hayes, Alastair Hesp, Shaun Hill, Paul Howarth, Rosie Jackson, Janet Jenkins, Helen Kay, Asim Khan, Charles Lauder Jr, Hannah Linden, Jane Lovell, Nick Makoha, Liam McCormick, Andrew McMillan, Abegail Morley, Katrina Naomi, Antony Owen, Isabel Palmer, Ian Patterson, Mario Petrucci, Zoe Piponedes, clare e.potter, Peter Raynard, Brenda Read-Brown, Victoria Richards, Belinda Rimmer, Bethany Rivers, Stephen Seabridge, Richard Skinner, Caroline Smith, Janet Smith, Joelle Taylor, MT Taylor, Christina Thatcher.

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Lola Olufemi, Odelia Younge, Waithera Sebatindira, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

A FLY Girl’s Guide to University is a collection of memoirs, essays, poetry and prose from four women of colour who studied at the University of Cambridge. It is a multifaceted calling out of the wrongness underpinning their shared experience at Cambridge, and the experiences of others in similar institutions throughout the UK. But they describe it best: ‘The purpose of our book is simple: we believe that our lives, our experiences, and our voices matter, especially in a place of power, pervasive whiteness and exclusivity. Our voices not only deserve to be heard but must be because the ‘Cambridge experience’

of a middle-class, white, cisgendered, able-bodied man is not the only one. Ours cannot be silenced.

We came together through FLY, a network specifically by and for women and non-binary people of colour at Cambridge. As members of FLY, we were all vocal and active in feminist and anti-racist politics, as well as adamant about intersectionality – whether in education, research, creating spaces on campus or in our campaigning. Through meeting there, hearing one another and experiencing our absences elsewhere, we decided to write this book. Writing gave us a language and space that we were not often afforded and a chance to live beyond the niches carved out for us by others. This book exists as a testament to our existences in a place we were often made invisible, and stands as a demonstration of the fact that we have the power to validate ourselves.

We believe our book itself to be a form of activism in its fearless sharing of our experiences and in contributing to the provision of previously silenced truths. In some ways, the importance of what we say is almost as important as the fact we say it at all because the power of this book is borne from the desire to continue a legacy of recording lived experiences of those whose stories often go unpublished. We want our work to act as a disruption, a hope, and a symbol that though marginalised in many ways and many spaces, we are very much alive, evolving and powerful.’

This wonderful book needs to be read, discussed and understood, in Universities, but also in government offices, businesses and anywhere that people are made to feel excluded, estranged and exposed because of their heritage, their religion or their appearance.

This item is also available as an EPUB download. To order this, please go HERE

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a writer, spoken-word poet, and educator invested in unlearning the modalities of knowledge she has internalised, disrupting power relations, and asking questions around narratives to do with race, gender, Islamophobia, state violence and decoloniality. She did her BA in History at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and MA in Postcolonial Studies at SOAS. Alongside a wider education from the epistemology of Islam and work of women of colour and anti-systemic thinkers from across the world, Suhaiymah regularly speaks and workshops on racism, Islamophobia, feminism and poetry across the UK as well as writing about those topics at her website, www.thebrownhijabi.com. Her work has been featured in The Independent, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera, BBC, The Islam Channel, ITV, Sky TV, TEDx conferences, music festivals, US slams and British Universities. She is trying her best to destabilise accepted narratives and disrupt the tendency to fall into binary explanations, insha’Allah.

Waithera Sebatindira

Waithera Sebatindira is a Law graduate from Trinity Hall and recently completed her MPhil in Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies at the same College. While facilitator of FLY, and with the indispensable support of its founders and a group of committed women of colour, she expanded the group’s membership and reach. During this time, Waithera developed a black feminist ethic that continues to be informed by the work of inspirational women she reads and meets – especially this book’s co-authors. She went on to become the first woman of colour to hold the position of full-time Women’s Officer on the Cambridge University Students’ Union and, during her tenure, campaigned on behalf of woman and non-binary students on campus while coordinating decolonial efforts across campus.

Lola Olufemi
Lola Olufemi is a black feminist and organiser from London. She graduated from Cambridge with a degree in English Literature in 2016. She facilitated FLY, the group for women and non-binary people of colour at Cambridge from 2015-16 and held roles on the BME and Women’s Campaign. She was the Cambridge University Students Union Women’s Officer from 2017-18. During her time at university she was heavily involved in student activism, working on, amongst others: the establishment of support for survivors of sexual violence, decolonising the curriculum and opposing the marketisation of higher education. She is currently the NUS Second Place on the NUS Women’s Campaign & sits on the National Executive Council. She is a masters student in Gender Studies who is interested in black feminist thought as a vehicle for thinking about the self and others and disrupting systems of power. She is currently writing a book on reclaiming feminism for young people which will be published by Pluto Press in 2020.

Odelia Younge

Odelia Younge is an educator and writer based in Oakland, California. In her life and work, she centers discussions about blackness and resistance. Odelia earned a B.A. in history and literature from Harvard and an MPhil in politics, development and democratic education from Cambridge. Her research has focused on black women collectives, historical memory, transgressions and resistance, and black male youth identity within spatial theory, critical youth studies, and radical black feminist theory. Odelia also has a background in peace education and children’s rights, developing programs in places such as Miami, Florida and the Greater Accra region of Ghana. She has led work across the United States on transforming education, decolonising systems, and building out spaces for black writers, while also organizing spaces for creative expression. Odelia is driven by her faith, radical black love, and the concept of creating yourself to freedom — forgetting what your oppressors have told you is the truth, and building anew. Odelia is the co-founder of Novalia Collective, which focuses on storytelling, community building, and cultivating spaces that vanquish fear of uncertainty and the unknown. She takes immense pride in being the editor and compiler of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University.

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Polarbear

Polarbear AKA Steven Camden is a writer from Birmingham who moved to London for a girl.

His debut young adult novel ‘TAPE’ was published worldwide in January 2014 by HarperCollins to rave reviews and his second novel, ‘IT’S ABOUT LOVE’, published in June 2015, was Book of the Month for The Guardian. His third novel ‘NOBODY REAL’ was recently published in May 2018.

His collection of spoken word stories ‘EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE’ was published by Macmillan in July 2018.

Under his performance name Polarbear, he is one of the most respected spoken word artists in the UK and has performed his work from California to Kuala Lumpur, via

Glastonbury, Latitude, Camden Crawl and pretty much every festival going.

He came to prominence as part of Apples & Snakes Exposed tour 2007 and has since written and performed three feature length theatre pieces; If I Cover My Nose You Can’t See Me (Birmingham REP), RETURN (BAC and mac) and Old Me (Roundhouse) on national and international tours.

These three long pieces from Birmingham born Polarbear AKA Steven Camden are his first printed pieces for adults. We are over the moon that he has chosen Verve Poetry Press to release them for him.

The three long pieces, poetry meets performance, are what he describes as his ‘spoken brummie saga’ – and are what we describe as his ‘portrait of the artist as a young poet.’ Steven again: ‘I am proud of these pieces and how they map my journey of a spoken word artist trying to craft his own voice while at the same time trying to gather a sense of who the hell I am.’

The language of these pieces is typical Polarbear – rhythmical, arrestingly simple, every word laden with a great weight of meaning until a spell is cast over the reader or listener and magic begins to happen. The sometimes humdrum setting of brothers’ rooms or sofas in flats and houses in Birmingham suburbs, of Co-ops and buses and passenger seats, sparkles in these pieces. The tight lipped conversations are all this poet needs to communicate a world of feeling, loyalty and deep seated affection.

These pieces absolutely need to be read, and if they can be, listened to too. They are the journey that delivered the man, the evolution of the spirit of the bear.

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Hannah Swingler

Hannah Swingler is a poet, teacher and artist, born and bred in Birmingham. She calls a forward roll a ‘gambole’.

She was the winner of CoachesSLAM 2018, as well as coaching the University of Birmingham’s uniSLAM team to victory. She went on to represent the UK at CUPSI in Philadelphia.

Hannah’s ‘haunting yet hopeful’ storytelling spans themes such as female identity, relationships and mental health. Luke Kennard observed, “her work finds the beautiful and the lyrical in the everyday with the wisest, self-deprecating heart and intuitive wit and humanity.”

Did you know? – as of 18/3/19 Hannah is the new face of Nationwide. Her wonderful poem, High Street Romance, can be seen on prime time ITV!!! You can see it below…

She has performed across the country: with Tongue Fu, featuring at Howl, Grizzly Pear, Verve Poetry Festival, Cafe Grande Slam, Stirchley Speaks, and at REP Birmingham, BOM, the Old REP, Ikon Gallery, Upstairs at the Western, Derby Theatre, Oxjam Fest, Birmingham Weekender and mac, amongst others. She featured on BBC radio discussing the importance of poetry for young people.

Hannah is an alumnus of both the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and Beatfreeks YSC.

She believes good things come to those who make.

Hannah describes her incredible debut collections of fresh and original poetry best.

‘I struggle to throw things away. Used envelopes, mostly. This is not only my debut collection of poetry, it is my hoard, my memory bank, my adventure into the known.’

This dress has pockets exudes the feeling of finding a dress that fits in a charity shop for only £4.50 and it has the functionality of pockets that are deep enough to carry unsent love letters and conkers and those memories that you wish you could binge watch, or tape over.

It is ethereal but memorable, surreal, but familiar, like a dream you weren’t able to keep hold of. It is what it means to remember, what it means to grow up storing your thoughts close to you, in pockets of dresses that make you look alright until you sit down in them. Now is your time to dance in it, now is the time to empty your pockets and spin.

We are thrilled to be bringing you this poetry dress with its many marvellous pockets. We encourage you to peer deep into them and be amazed!

This item is also available as an EPUB download. To order this, please go HERE

Sample Video: High Street Romance

Sample Poem: Freddie Mercury

When I am nine, my parents move us to the countryside, away from bus routes and gang wars. The house they buy is bigger, too cheap for what is offers and their deliberation doesn’t last long. They don’t think to look at the old wiring; block out the sound of the motorway at the bottom of the garden.

Financial recklessness is hereditary.

We continue to go to school in the city, work in the city: be city dwellers that must sleep where we can see the stars clearer. Thirteen miles there, another thirteen back: the car becomes our living room, our bedroom, our home.

It doesn’t have a CD player, so my brother makes jukebox cassettes, one song per family member then repeat. I choose Jesus of Surburbia by Green Day because it is nine minutes and seven seconds long and I crave the attention.

Fields, trees, abandoned farm buildings, hair pin bends, blind junctions, I know the landscape better than the opening to my favourite movie.

I write birthday cards leaning on headrests without curving a line.

I can apply a full face of makeup using the rear view mirror from the backseat.

I learn to change outfits without flashing the driver.

I devour books like they will be burnt at the end of the day.

My brother falls in love with a girl who lives opposite our school. He stays overnight on a camp bed in her living room, I think. He stops making mix tapes.

I am given an ipod for my birthday and spend the mornings staring out of the window pretending I am in a music video.

My mother only drives when my Dad is already home. At night, she turns the lights off on roads without cat eyes and we scream in the seconds of darkness, before we flash back to visibility. One night, we drive passed a man in drag walking in the road towards us. Two weeks later, the local headlines talk of a “decapitated tranny” who got hit by a car on her way home from a dinner party.

My Mom stops turning the lights off after that.

Mornings mean minus six degrees and the heater breaks.

I fall in love with a boy who lives opposite my school in an adjacent road to my brother’s girlfriend. I can see my art room from my bedroom window. I stay overnight on a camp bed, sometimes.

I’m not sure whether the reason I love him is because I get an extra half an hour of sleep in the morning.

We resurrect Freddie Mercury on a thunder filled October night through dramatic, unrehearsed yet surprisingly harmonised word-perfect rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. We congratulate each other on hitting the high notes, swerve to miss a pheasant and hit a tree instead.

When I graduate – after thirteen years of thirteen miles there and thirteen back – my parents move to the road my brother’s now fiancée lives on. I can see my old room from my bedroom window. I get an extra half an hour of sleep in the morning.

There are bus routes and gang wars and no blind junctions.

We do not make mix tapes.

We do not resurrect Freddie Mercury anymore, but I can still apply liquid eyeliner travelling over potholes using the rear view mirror from the backseat.

CONTACT HANNAH:

Twitter: @HannahSwings
www.facebook.com/hannswings
https://hannahswings.com