Poet

You have read your poems at literature festivals in more than 40 countries. What was it like to be in India? Have you been here before? PREMIUM Cuban poet Victor Rodriguez Nunez reading out his work at the Mumbai Poetry Festival 2024 (Courtesy the Mumbai Poetry Festival) This is my second trip to India. I have participated in festivals in New Delhi and in Goa and now Mumbai and Kolkata. India is a marvellous country, with a cultural richness that I hope everyone admires as much as I do. When did you begin to…

Nikki Giovanni was born on the wrong side of the tracks, in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Mulvaney Street, during the era of segregation. Now 80, she remembers her childhood in a red-lined neighbourhood, demarcating a cordon sanitaire separating it from prosperous white suburbs. “My grandfather was a Latin teacher. He’d sit on the porch and people would come by saying ‘Evening ’fessor’. Reverend Abrams lived on the other side of our street and Mrs Abrams raised chickens. We built a church and there was a real community but…

Harry J’s studio, Kingston, Jamaica, winter 1976. Wearing a Spartan Health Club T-shirt and busted sandals, Bob Marley finishes singing a take of a weirdly cheery song called Smile Jamaica. I had been reporting from the island for the British rock press and was popping by to give my farewells – only to be surprised by this ditty that sounded like a tourism commercial. Why so upbeat? Marley took a swig of green juice and, frowning, crisply replied: “People in Jamaica too vex.”Vex means angry, and the truth of his analysis…

Jamaican poet Jason Allen-Paisant has won this year’s TS Eliot prize for Self-Portrait As Othello, his collection exploring Black masculinity and immigrant identity.Allen-Paisant was announced as the winner of the £25,000 award during a ceremony at the Wallace Collection in London.“Self-Portrait As Othello is a book with large ambitions that are met with great imaginative capacity, freshness and technical flair,” said the judging panel, made up of the poets Paul Muldoon, Sasha Dugdale and Denise Saul.The book –…

Popular show `Peaky Blinders` actor and poet Benjamin Zephaniah passed away at the age of 65. He played the role of Jeremiah Jesus in `Peaky Blinders.` According to a statement posted to Zephaniah`s official Instagram account, he died on Thursday after being diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks ago, as per Variety, a US-based media outlet. "Benjamin`s wife was by his side throughout and was with him when he passed," the statement continued. "We shared him with the world and we know many will be shocked and…

Benjamin Zephaniah, the British poet whose work often addressed political injustice, has died aged 65.Zephaniah died in the early hours of Wednesday morning after being diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks ago, a post on his Instagram page stated.“Benjamin’s wife was by his side throughout and was with him when he passed,” the post read. “We shared him with the world and we know many will be shocked and saddened by this news. Benjamin was a true pioneer and innovator, he gave the world so much. Through an amazing…

Roman police investigated John Keats shortly before his death, newly discovered 19th-century archive documents reveal.Keats scholar Alessandro Gallenzi discovered an entry in Roman police registers about the poet, under the misspelt name “John Xeats”. He was recorded as being under investigation, after his landlady asked for him to be removed from her house because he had not disclosed to her that he had tuberculosis. At the time, tuberculosis was considered to be contagious in Rome, so it would have been difficult and…

Linton Kwesi Johnson is best known for 1975’s Dread Beat an’ Blood, the book of poetry he later recorded as an album, setting the verse against a dub reggae backdrop and releasing it under the moniker Poet and the Roots. More albums followed, with Johnson becoming known as the “dub poet”, though he is also a prolific writer of prose, as illustrated by Time Come, a collection of essays, obituaries and speeches spanning 45 years.Divided into sections covering music, literature, politics, places and people, the book finds…

Shane MacGowan, the sandpapery voiced former Pogues frontman who served as the bridge between traditional Irish folk music and punk rock, has died. MacGowan’s death on Nov. 30 was confirmed in a statement by his wife Victoria Clarke. He was 65. For the past four decades, the singer and guitarist embodied Irish spirit by turning traditional pub anthems like “Waxie’s Dargle” and “I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day,” as well as the Dubliners’ “Dirty Old Town” into rousing rock anthems with the Pogues. His voice was…

Terence Davies was the great British movie artist of working class Catholic experience and gay identity, a passionate believer and practitioner of cinema. And was also a wonderfully stylish and self-assured presence in person, with a gorgeously resonant voice that might have belonged to a stage matinee idol.I raised a glass of rose with a beaming Davies and Mark Cousins at the 2008 Cannes film festival after the triumphant premiere of Of Time and the City, Davies’s wonderful, personal docu-collage about his home city of…