Writing awake to times of crisis: APRIL

To achieve clarity to make sense of, and speak to the times we are living in, it helps to be grounded in the present moment and our lived experience.

Poetry is an act of attention. It asks us to look again and more
closely at things in the world. It wants to be beautiful as language,
as performance, but it wants to do something in the world’
– Kimberly Blaeser (Ojibwe)

Join us as we take action by paying attention — reading and writing in response to what is going on around us, close by and far away. There is much to cherish, and much to strive to change, and poetry is uniquely placed to reflect and shed light on the situation we find ourselves in.

We will take inspiration from poets from around the world, to write our own poems that look closely, as only we can, at the world now.

This workshop is open to new and experienced writers of poetry, and anyone who is curious about writing as expression and discovery.  You will leave having read and discussed contemporary poems, and begun your own poems of witness, in a supportive and nourishing group.

Sessions take place monthly in Brixton, south London, and last two and a half hours with a break.

About Shazea Quraishi

Shazea is a Pakistani-born Canadian poet, translator and educator based in Brixton, South London. She has taught for over 20 years, with organisations including the Poetry School, Arvon, The Poetry Society, Translators in Schools, English PEN, Exiled Writers and more. She has designed and delivered poetry courses at undergraduate level and led poetry workshops in adult education, prisons, refugee centres, festivals, theatres and museums.

Her poems have appeared in UK and US publications including The Guardian, The Financial Times, Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation & The Hudson Review, and anthologized in 'Poetry: A Writer's Guide and Anthology', 'Mapping the Future: The Complete Works Poets', ‘The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write’, and others. Books include The Glimmer (Bloodaxe Books, 2023) The Taxidermist (Verve Poetry Press, 2020), The Art of Scratching (Bloodaxe Books, 2015) and The Courtesans Reply (flipped eye publishing, 2012).

A Complete Works alumna, Shazea is a writer in residence with Living Words, an arts and literature organisation that works in creative partnership with marginalised people impacted by a dementia or ongoing mental health concerns.