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Centre for Poetry and Poetics in Collaboration with Black Humanities Series Presents: A Reading With Safia Khan, Inua Ellams and Imtiaz Dharker

Safia Khan is a junior doctor and poet. Her debut collection (Too Much Mirch) was published in 2022 with Smith | Doorstop and woParty) which celebrates poetry & hip hop, and Poetry + Film / Han the New Poets Prize. She has been commissioned to write and deliver lectures in poetry for various universities and literary organisations, including The British Library, The University of Oxford, The Poetry Business, and the Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry and Medicine. Her work has been published in various journals and anthologies including The North, BATH MAGG, Poetry Wales, Introduction X: The Poetry Business Book of New Poets (New Poets List), We’re All in It Together: Poems for a disUnited Kingdom (Grist), Dear Life (Hive), Surfing the Twilight (Hive).

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Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and facilitates workshops in creative writing where he explores reoccurring themes in his work - Identity, Displacement and Destiny - in accessible, enjoyable ways for participants of all ages and backgrounds.

His awards include: Edinburgh Fringe First Award 2009, The Liberty Human Rights Award, The Live Canon International Poetry Prize, The Kent & Sussex Poetry Competition, Magma Poetry Competition, Winchester Poetry Prize, A Black British Theatre Award and The Hay Festival Medal for Poetry.

He has been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Tate Modern, Louis Vuitton, BBC Radio & Television. His poetry books include ‘Candy Coated Unicorn and Converse All Stars’ published Flipped Eye, 'The Wire-Headed Heathen' by Akashic Books, The Half God of Rainfall by 4th Estate and The Actual by Penned in The Margins. His plays include ‘Black T-shirt Collection’, ‘The 14th Tale’, ‘Barber Shop Chronicles’ and ‘Three Sisters’ published by Oberon. He founded The Midnight Run (an arts-filled, night-time, urban walking experience.) The Rhythm and Poetry Party (The R.A.P ck (P+F/H) which celebrates Poetry & Film.

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Imtiaz Dharker grew up a 'Muslim Calvinist' in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She is an accomplished artist and video film-maker, and has published six books with Bloodaxe, Postcards from god (including Purdah) (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001), The terrorist at my table (2006), Leaving Fingerprints (2009), Over the Moon (2014) and Luck Is the Hook (2018). Her seventh, Shadow Reader, is published in 2024. All her poetry collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of the books; she is one of very few poet-artists to work in this way. She was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2014, presented to her by The Queen in spring 2015, and has also received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Over the Moon was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2014. Her poems are on the British GCSE and A Level English syllabus, and she reads with other poets at Poetry Live! events all over the country to more than 35,000 students a year. She has had a dozen solo exhibitions of drawings in India, London, Leeds, New York and Hong Kong. She scripts and directs films, many of them for non-government organisations in India, working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children. In 2015 she appeared on the iconic BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs. In 2020 she was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University. She lives in London.

Event curated by Agnes Lehoczky.