The Writer
My writing explores embodied experience in the context of Afro-diasporic history. My critically acclaimed collection, Thinking with Trees was a 2021 Irish Times Poetry Book of the Year and won the Poetry category of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. My work has appeared in Granta, The Guardian, The Poetry Review, Callaloo, New Poetries VIII, The BBC, More Fiya: A New Collection of Black British Poetry, among other venues. I have been the recipient of a prestigious Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for my research on poetry and theatre. I hold a Doctorate in Medieval and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford and am currently Senior Lecturer in Critical Theory and Creative Writing in the Department of English and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. My creative non-fiction book titled Scanning the Bush will be published by Hutchinson Heinemann in 2024. My work is represented by Harriet Moore at David Higham and Associates.
Books
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Thinking with Trees. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2021.
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Second Lives: On Blackness, Landscape and Reclaiming Time (in progress)
Poetry
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'Naming', Granta 154
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'Crossing the Threshold' and 'For Those Who Steal Away', Granta (The Online Edition)
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'The Last Time' & other poems, Moko Magazine
Creative Non-Fiction Publications
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'Joy and Insecurity in Port-au-Prince', Granta 159.
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'Primitive Child' (memoir), Granta 157.
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'Reclaiming Time: On Blackness and Landscape', Prospections Journal (originally published in PN Review 257.
Readings/ Performances
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'Roots and Weeds', Nottingham Contemporary, 10 March 2022.
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'Pantemporal Intimacies', LUX London, 14 May 2022.
Podcasts
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-- Interview on The Cultural Frontline, BBC World Service, July 2021.
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-- ‘Tree Thinking: Experiments in Living’, Interview on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, 2021, June 2021.
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-- ‘On Being a Black Body in “Nature”: A Walking Lyric’, Essay commissioned by Ilkley Literature Festival, February 2021.
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-- ‘The Writing of Aimé Césaire’, Free Thinking, BBC Radio 4, October 2020.
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-- ‘Thinking with Trees: Poetry and Conversation’, EcoCast: Environmental Conversations on Creative Art, Scholarship and Teaching. Podcast of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, December 2020.
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-- ‘Dante in Caribbean Poetry’, Podcast of Leeds Dante Institute, November 2020.
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--‘Stuart Hall: A Celebration’ Audio recording of a talk given in honour of Stuart Hall at Merton College, Oxford, on 29 November 2014.
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--‘Aimé Césaire and Derek Walcott’ Audio blog post. University of Oxford Podcasts. ‘Interviews on Great Writers’ Series. University of Oxford, August 2012.