Nick Makoha is the founder of The Obsidian Foundation, a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, Complete Works alumnus, and winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz prize. In 2017, his debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of the Guardian’s best books of the year. He won the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize and the 2016 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Prize for his pamphlet Resurrection Man. His poems have appeared in the Cambridge Review, the New York Times, Poetry Review, Rialto, Poetry London, TriQuarterly Review, Boston Review, Callaloo and Wasari. He is a Trustee for the Arvon Foundation and the Ministry of Stories, and a member of the Malika’s Poetry Kitchen collective. Learn more at www.nickmakoha.com.
Nick Makoha
All Sessions by Nick Makoha
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Day 1
15th October 2021
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19:00
Headliner: Poems from a Dangerous Year
19:00 - 21:00And what a year (and a bit) it has been! Push the Boat Out seeks to celebrate and interrogate the role that poetry plays in helping us reflect on, challenge, and make sense of the world around us. In Poems from a Dangerous Year, some of our finest poets will do just that, selecting and presenting work that considers the past tumultuous 18 months. Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Roseanne Watt, Nick Makoha and Caroline Bird will be joined by Jamaican poet laureate Lorna Goodison (livestreamed) to guide us through poetry which has shaped and illuminated their dangerous year. With music specially commissioned for the Edwin Morgan Centenary from Esther Swift, join us for the very first Opening Night of the very first Push the Boat Out: Edinburgh's International Poetry Festival.
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Day 2
16th October 2021
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13:00
Reading and Discussion: Obsidian Presents - Raymond Antrobus 'All the Names Given'
13:00 - 14:00Poetry is a space of dissonance and reckoning. In this event presented by the Obsidian Foundation, a retreat for black poets of African descent who want to advance their writing practice, Raymond Antrobus does us the unique honour of launching his most recent publication, All the Names Given.
Antrobus's accolades are endless: In 2019 he became the first ever poet to be awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize for best work of literature in any genre. He has been shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and Forward Prize and also received the Ted Hughes Award, The Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, PBS Winter Choice, A Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Somerset Maugham Award and The Guardian Poetry Book Of The Year Award. He is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works 3, Jerwood Compton and the Royal Society of Literature. He is also one of the world's first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word Education from Goldsmiths University.
Join us as Antrobus's friends, Malika Booker and Nick Makoha, launch All the Names Given, interrogating identity, language, memory, place, and (mis)communication. This event will be BSL signed.
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