New Poems for English Heritage
In 2020, we invited poets Esme Allman, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Jay Bernard, Malika Booker, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa and Jacob Sam-La Rose to create new works which reflect on the history, fabric and atmosphere of our sites.
Their new poems enable us to look beyond the surface of our heritage for stories and people that may have been untold, forgotten or unseen. They also consider each writer’s contemporary perspective of what it means to be a Black person visiting a heritage site today.
Learn more about each poet here, and read their new poems published in our digital anthology alongside other emerging and established writers.
Jacob Sam-La Rose
Jacob Sam-La Rose is a poet, programme director, educator and editor. His poetry has been translated into Portuguese, Latvian, French and Dutch, and is studied at A Level. He’s been responsible for the Spoken Word Education Programme, Shake the Dust (national youth poetry slam) and leads Barbican Young Poets, which he established in 2009.
Since February 2020, Jacob has been English Heritage’s first ever Poet in Residence. He released his new poem, What It Means to Be, on twitter for National Poetry Day and Black History Month, 1 October 2020.
Esme Allman
Esme Allman is a poet, theatre-maker and facilitator based in South London. She is currently a Young Associate at the Young Vic theatre and teaches on the Acting Foundation at ArtsEd. Her work has been published in the Barbican Young Poets Anthology, The Colour of Madness, The Skinny and POSTSCRIPT.
Jay Bernard
Jay Bernard (FRSA, FRSL) is from London and the author of Surge (2019) a queer exploration of the archives surrounding the New Cross Fire in 1981. Jay won the Ted Hughes Award 2017, and Surge has been shortlisted for the Forward, Costa, Ondaatje and T.S Eliot prizes and the Dylan Thomas award.
Malika Booker
Malika Booker’s poetry collection Pepper Seed (2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize. She is published alongside poets Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguin Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017) and currently lectures at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa
Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa is a British-born, Barbadian-raised poet. Her debut collection The Inheritance is forthcoming with Out-Spoken Press. Safiya is a recipient of the Jerwood Arts | Apples & Snakes Poetry in Performance Programme and was awarded the 2020 New Voice in Poetry Prize.
Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanaian-British writer and editor who has won acclaim for his work as a children's writer, poet and novelist. As founder and editor of flipped eye publishing, he has published a leading crop of UK poets, including Malika Booker, Niall O'Sullivan and Warsan Shire. His latest book,The Geez, was released in 2020.