An evening of poetry by women and nonbinary writers of colour, celebrating the launch of "Our Time Is A Garden" edited by Dr Alycia Pirmohamed
Free tickets: https://ourtimeisagarden.eventbrite.co.uk
Our Time Is A Garden is a wonderful new collection of nature writing and landscape poetry from some of Scotland's most exciting poets. Edited by IASH's Junior Anniversary Fellow 2021-22 Dr Alycia Pirmohamed, the book seeks to decolonise the literary arts in Scotland, primarily by supporting the development of, and creating space for, new nature writing by women and nonbinary writers of colour. Poets include Anthony Ezekiel (Vahni) Capildeo, Tim Tim Cheng, Marjorie Lotfi, Nina Mingya Powles, Jeda Pearl and two winners of the 2022 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, Titilayo Farukuoye and Roshni Gallagher.
Join us to celebrate the release of the book - we'll enjoy readings by featured writers, followed by drinks. Free copies will be available for all attendees.
Readers include Nasim Rebecca Asl, Nadia Maloney, Roshni Gallagher, Shasta Hanif Ali, Nikki Kilburn, Brenda Vengesa, Jeda Pearl, Anthony Ezekiel (Vahni) Capildeo and Titilayo Farukuoye.
Our time is a garden in which all realities are simultaneously possible. Sun Yung Shin
Nature poetry is historically a male-dominated poetics, where women and nonbinary writers of colour have been doubly marginalised. All one need do is look at nature writing anthologies, awards, scholarship, and criticism to see that there is a noticeable gap of these perspectives in mainstream literary culture. In Western/European contexts, the dominance of white, male perspectives in nature writing is so pervasive that it is often a barrier for women and nonbinary writers of colour to even call themselves nature writers.
Five workshops were co-facilitated by artists and academics working in various areas of ecological writing during 2022. All the writers included in the collection attended this workshop series as either attendees or guest speakers. The programme was open to poets at all stages in their careers and from any educational background. It aimed to develop writing skills and promote knowledge exchange by sharing interdisciplinary art and research. The workshops emphasised interdisciplinary knowledge exchange between academics, researchers, and artists, alongside the development of new poetry, to contribute to the decolonisation of nature writing in the UK.
Our Time Is A Garden will be available completely free, both online and as a pamphlet published by the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities from Friday 3 February. We would like to thank Dr Shari Sabeti, the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, Creative Scotland, the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network and the Ledbury Poetry Critics Programme, as well as all of our invited speakers and contributors.
Image: "Under The Canopy" by Anupa Gardner. www.anupagardner.com All rights reserved.