Writing into Ritual, A Poetry Workshop with Malika Booker 14/9/25 Sunday

Ritual is what makes us human, to be able to make meaning beyond the here and now through the use our imagination. In that sense, the making of poetry is perhaps ritual in itself. Malika argues that ritual is part of the important and necessary work for writers and artists.

The workshop will begin with a ritual to arrive at your writing desk, moving into the liminal space for writing. We’ll explore poems that delve into everyday and ceremonial ritual. Rituals, from how we enter the day to how we prepare for important days in our lives, enact traditions, values, love and community. They can be inherited or invented, or more often, a combination of the two. We’ll excavate rituals embedded in our daily lives and their meaning, making ordinary experiences extraordinary, magical and emotionally enriching. Malika will also discuss her own poetic work as ritual, including poems, exhibition work and interactive performances.

Finally, Malika will lead a ritual during the workshop and you’ll write poems from the intensity of this experience. You’d be asked to bring a few simple props in advance (including a bell, or simply a glass and spoon that makes a bell-like sound). You'll also be asked to bring the names of people who have been silenced or forgotten that you’d like to include in a ritual of utterance in order to name and honour. These names could be from a political, historical or personal/ family context (bring 3, 5 or 7 names).

2.5 hours long

Start time: 10am UK time // 5pm Perth Australia // 6.30pm Adelaide & Darwin // 7pm Brisbane & Sydney, AEST // // 9pm NZ

 Cost £30 GBP (with cost effective exchange via STRIPE)

Online on Zoom

Advertised times on this site are in London, UK Timezone, but when you add the event to your calendar it should be correct for your local time zone.

You can check your timezone against London UK time here: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/time-zone-converter/

Malika Booker's poetic work is steeped in ritual, including her current project creolising the King James Bible, an interactive performance exploring rituals for coping with loss inspired by Caribbean funeral traditions called Alters, and her current exhibition at Manchester Poetry Library, Museum for Mothers of Black Bodies Murdered in State Custody.

She is a British poet, theatre-maker, performer and multi-disciplinary artist of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage. She is a winner of a Society of Authors Cholmondeley Award for poetry and the only woman to win the UK Forward Prize for Best Single Poem Prize twice! A third poem has been shortlisted for the same prize. Her collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas and the Seamus Heaney Centre prize. She is published with Sharon Olds and Warsan Shire in The Penguins Modern Poet Series 3: Your Family: Your Body (2017), and has written and performed in many highly successful full-length theatrical poetry shows. Malika was chair of judges for The Forward Prize in 2016 and chair of judges for the international Manchester Poetry Prize. She’s a fellow of both The Complete Works and Cave Canem, as well as inaugural poet in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was a Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow in Creative Writing and LHRI Fellow at Leeds University and currently teaches at Manchester Metropolitan University. Malika is a founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen collective that has nurtured many leading poets.

Zoom link and materials will be sent by email at least 2 days prior. If you don’t receive it get in touch with me.

More events here https://www.cathdrake.com