Inua Ellams: 05Fest

Loved by many and widely recognised as a voice of his generation, 27-year-old Gboyega Odubanjo was a phenomenal voice, a good man, a favourite writer of mine, and was due to be a part of the Poetry + Film / Hack line up on Thursday 28 Sep 2023.

I could not bring myself to take his name from the lineup, therefore the event will be a celebration of his work. Between the newly commissioned work, I shall be reading selections of Gboyega’s work that chime with the film and its themes. So gifted a writer was he, that the poems I have found fit perfectly with themes of personal truth, the pursuit for art, family, community and faith explored in Sister Act 2. I hope you will come to hold a moment’s silence for him and listen to some of his poems.

Gboyega had received an Eric Gregory Award, New Poets’ Prize and the Michael Marks Award, and without doubt would have gone on to produce a lifetime of enduring work as one of poetry’s shining lights. An editor at Bad Betty Press and the poetry magazine Bath Magg, Gboyega gave support and mentorship to many developing artists and his contribution within the poetry community was invaluable. Gboyega’s full-length debut collection of poetry, Adam, is forthcoming from Faber in Summer 2024.

Gboyega’s family and friends have been working tirelessly to ensure his name and image remain visible and have launched a community fundraiser here. Funds raised will support his final arrangements and continue on his legacy through the Gboyega Odubanjo Foundation for low-income Black writers.

Inua Ellams

Redacted!
Tue 26 Sep, 7.45pm

Esme Allman is a poet, writer, theatre maker and facilitator based in South East London. She is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores blackness, desire and (hi)story-making in individual and collective contexts.

Esme is a Roundhouse Resident Artist. As part of her residency at the Roundhouse, she wrote and performed her one-woman show Delectably Red in June 2022.

She has a background in participatory theatre, with experience working at Cardboard Citizens, Clean Break, and the Young Vic. She also has experience as a theatre maker and facilitator with several notable organisations including the Hammersmith Lyric, Fevered Sleep, Sydenham Arts, Talawa Theatre Company, The Bunker Theatre, Nuu Theatre, and ArtsEd.

Esme’s poetry has been featured in the anthology Articulations for Keeping the Light In published by flipped eye in July 2022, Roundhouse Poetry Collective Anthology We Have Never Seen Something Like This, POSTSCRIPT, Barbican Young Poets Anthology 19/20 and The Skinny.

Twitter and Instagram: @_esmeallman

Mona Arshi’s debut collection Small Hands won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015. Her second collection Dear Big Gods was published in 2019 (both books published by Liverpool University Press’s Pavilion Poetry list). Her writing has been published in The Times, The Guardian, Granta, The Yale Review, and The Times of India as well as on the London Underground. She was Writer in Residence at Cley Marshes in Norfolk, and during lockdown she spent time in the area working on poems that were transformed into digital assets and embedded in the landscape. In 2020 she was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool and she is currently a fellow in creative writing at Trinity College, Cambridge – a position she will hold until September 2024. Her debut novel Somebody Loves You was published by And Other Stories in 2021, and has been shortlisted for the Goldsmith Prize and Jhalak Prize.

Twitter: @arshi_mona
Instagram: @monaarshipoetry

Laura Bates is a feminist activist and writer. She is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project and her campaigning and advocacy work has seen Facebook change its policies on sexual violence, helped British Transport Police to transform its approach to sexual assaults, and contributed to putting consent and healthy relationships on the national curriculum.

Laura works with bodies from the United Nations to the Council of Europe as well as governments, schools, and police forces to tackle gender inequality. She writes regularly for the The Guardian, Telegraph, New York Times, Glamour, and others. She is a bestselling author of many books, including Everyday Sexism, Men Who Hate Women, and Fix the System Not the Women. She is contributor at Women Under Siege, a New York-based project dedicated to ending the use of rape as a weapon of war in conflict zones worldwide.

Twitter: @everydaysexism
Instagram: @laura_bates__

JJ Bola is a writer, poet, and educator, born in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, and raised in London. His debut novel, No Place to Call Home, was first published in 2017. His second novel, The Selfless Act of Breathing, was published in 2021.

JJ Bola’s non-fiction book, Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined, was published in 2019. JJ Bola also has three previous poetry collections, Elevate (2012), Daughter of the Sun (2014), and WORD (2015) – all of which were published in a definitive called Refuge (2018). His work has been translated and published into multiple other languages. He is currently working on his third novel.

JJ Bola is also an ambassador for the United Nations High Council for Refugees. And has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck University. JJ Bola also works as a mental health social worker, in a community mental health team, after qualifying through the Think Ahead accelerated training programme.

Joe Dunthorne’s debut novel, Submarine, was translated into twenty languages and made into an award-winning film. His second, Wild Abandon, won the RSL’s Encore Award. His debut poetry collection, O Positive, was published in 2019 and his latest novel is The Adulterants. He lives in London.

Twitter @joedunthorne

Rebecca Perry has written two full-length poetry collections – Beauty/Beauty and Stone Fruit – both published by Bloodaxe Books (2015, 2021), as well as four pamphlets. Her poetry has been shortlisted for awards including the T S Eliot Prize and her first collection won the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. Her first work of creative non-fiction – On Trampolining – was published by Makina Books in 2023. She is from London, where she also lives.

Twitter and Instagram: @poorsasquatch

Antonia Jade King (she/her) is one of the hosts of Boomerang Club, and a previous Hammer & Tongue finalist. She has featured at Poetry and Shaah, Heaux Noire, and was part of Apples and Snakes Writing Room programme in 2018. She has performed at numerous events including Love Supreme festival and Rallying Cry at Battersea Arts Centre. She was also a Barbican Young Poet and her debut pamphlet She Too is a Sailor is out with Bad Betty Press

Latekid is a self-taught, anti-disciplinary sound artist, musician, writer and vocalist who aims to find the colours within the shaded spaces of art and post-modern expressionism. Latekid has collaborated with artists and producers such as Caleb Femi, Avenhue (also of @fwrdmtn), Tobi Kyeremateng + Sloghouse. Having worked with and performed at institutions such as Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Jazz Cafe, and Complicité. Latekid always aims to bring an alternative angle to music performance, gig theatre or public sonic experimentation.

Courttia Newland is the author of nine books including his debut, The Scholar. A story collection, Cosmogramma, was published in 2021. His short stories have appeared in many anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As a screenwriter he has co-written two episodes of the Steve McQueen BBC series Small Axe, and an episode of The Woman in the Wall for BBC/Showtime. His latest novel, A River called Time, was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award Science Fiction Book of the Year 2022.

Twitter: @courttianewland
Instagram: @courttia

Anonyms
Wed 27 Sep, 7.45pm

Gabriel Akamo is a Nigerian-British multi-disciplinary creative, working as a poet, actor, facilitator, and creative producer. Spanning both page and stage, his work draws heavily on themes of faith, identity, heredity, loneliness, and the body. He has been commissioned by institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts and St Paul’s Cathedral, with festival performances including Lovebox, Bestival, and Festival Kometa in Riga, Latvia. He has also been published in a number of anthologies – including flipped eye publishing's Before Them, We – and released his debut pamphlet, At the Speed of Dark in 2020. His work has also recently been translated into Arabic in collaboration with British Council Tunisia.

He is currently appearing in the London production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, marking his West End debut. He is an alumnus of Barbican Young Poets and the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, and a former Roundhouse Resident Artist.

Twitter: @Gabriel Akamo
Instagram/Threads: @gabrielakamo_

Laurie Bolger is a London based writer and founder of The Creative Writing Breakfast Club. Her debut pamphlet 'Box Rooms (Burning Eye)' has featured at Glastonbury, TATE, RA, and Sky Arts.

Laurie’s writing has appeared in The Poetry Review, The London Magazine, Magma, Crannog, Stand, and Trinity College Icarus and her poems & short stories have been shortlisted for The Bridport Prize, Live Canon, Winchester and Sylvia Plath Prizes.

In 2023, Laurie’s poem ‘Parkland Walk’ was awarded The Moth Prize, judged by Louise Glück, and Highly Commended in the Forward Prize for Poetry.

Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù is a Nigerian British actor with credits across film, TV and theatre. In 2021, he was nominated for a BAFTA for his role as Bol in the movie His House, as well as for the Rising Star Award. Currently, he stars as Elliot Finch in the Sky Atlantic series Gangs of London, which is now in its second season.

Twitter and Instagram: @sopedirisu

Rabiah Hussain’s Word-Play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in July 2023. 

Her debut full-length play, Spun, premiered at Arcola Theatre in July 2018, toured Canada in 2019, and won the German Baden-Wuttemberg Youth Theatre Prize and the German Youth Theatre Award in 2020.

Rabiah was selected as a writer for the Kudos TV and Royal Court Theatre Fellowship Programme 2019 and wrote on the third edition of the Royal Court Living Newspaper. She was also commissioned by the Royal Court to write a monologue as part of their One Night Stand programme in 2022.

Rabiah co-wrote We are Shadows, an audio drama tour of Brick Lane for Tamasha Theatre in 2020. Her other plays include Where I Live and What I Live For written for Theatre Absolute in 2017.

Rabiah was selected to be part of the BBC TV Drama Writers’ Programme 2020 and the BBC Drama Room programme in 2018. www.rabiahhussain.com

Twitter: @hussnr

Nathaniel Martello-White is a British writer, director and actor for stage and screen.

His first play, Blackta premiered at the Young Vic Theatre in 2012. He was later nominated for the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright for his play Torn, which played at the Royal Court Theatre in 2016. Nathaniel is currently under commission to write new plays for the Royal Court Theatre and Headlong.

For screen, Nathaniel is currently in the midst of directing his debut feature film The Strays, which he also wrote. The project was developed with The Bureau for Netflix and will star Ashley Madekwe and Bukky Bakray. He is also adapting Blackta into a TV series with Dancing Ledge Productions for HBO.

Nathaniel’s short film Cla’am (produced by BFI and Film4), which he wrote and directed, was a 2017 SXSW Film Festival selection, and won the award for Best UK Short at Raindance Film Festival.

As an actor, Nathaniel recently appeared in director Steve McQueen’s BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated series Small Axe (BBC/Amazon). He can also be seen starring opposite Billie Piper in Lucy Prebble’s BAFTA nominated show I Hate Suzie (Sky Atlantic/HBO Max). His many stage credits include roles in Joe Turner's Come and Gone and The Brothers Size (Young Vic), A Midsummer Night's Dream, City Madame, Marat/Sade (RSC), Innocence (Arcola), and Oxford Street (Royal Court).

Jack Prideaux is a London-based creative producer who works with artists, organisations, and brands to create and deliver boundary-pushing work spanning live performance, film and campaigns. Jack's work with clients – including Tate, National Theatre, Tommy Hilfiger, Rankin, The British Council, PRS Foundation, Serious, and Sage Gateshead – often has a strong focus on artist development and seeks to support the development of work which reflects, responds to and influences the societies we live in. Jack is currently senior producer at the Roundhouse.

Leone Ross was born in England and grew up in Jamaica. Her first novel, All the Blood is Red, was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and her third novel, This One Sky Day, was longlisted for the Women's Prize, the Ondaatje Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. Her short fiction has been widely anthologised and her first short-story collection, Come Let Us Sing Anyway, was nominated for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Saboteur Awards, and the OCM BOCAS Prize. She is the editor of the first black British anthology of speculative fiction, Glimpse. Ross has taught creative writing for twenty years, at University College Dublin, Cardiff University and Roehampton University in London. She is the winner of the Manchester Writing Competition 2021. Prior to writing fiction, Ross worked as a journalist. Leone Ross lives in London but intends to retire near water.

Lily Loveless is a screenwriter who originally made her name as an actor, working across TV, theatre and film. In 2018 she was accepted onto the prestigious Channel 4 screenwriting course, and has since gone on to work with various production companies such as the BAFTA Award-winning World Productions (Line of Duty, Save Me) Emmy Award-winning Avalon (Catastrophe, Starstruck) and ITV, as both writer and executive producer. Currently in various stages of development on original television projects, Lily has also just joined new and exciting immersive story telling platform Scriptic as a writer and creative. Scriptic’s BAFTA nominated original interactive dramas are due to premiere on Netflix in the coming months.

Instagram: @lilymloveless

Derek Owusu is a writer, poet and podcaster from north London. He discovered his passion for literature at the age of twenty-three while studying exercise science at university. Unable to afford a change of degree, Derek began reading voraciously and sneaking into English Literature lectures at the University of Manchester. Derek edited and contributed to Safe: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space. That Reminds Me, his first solo work, won the Desmond Elliott Prize 2020.

Fathima Zahra (she/her) is an Indian poet and performer based in London. She is an alum of the Barbican Young Poets and Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Her debut pamphlet sargam / swargam (ignitionpress, 2021) was selected for the PBS Pamphlet Choice.

Instagram: @zeeforzahra3.0
Twitter: @zeeforzahra

Poetry + Film/ Hack (Sister Act 2)
Thu 28 Sep, 7.45pm

Zainab Amina is a London-based British-Nigerian visual and audio artist. Her work focuses on the Black British experience as well as diasporic communities beyond. She received a BA (Hons) Digital Film Production at the SAE Institute. Zainab Amina co-produces a podcast show titled Ldn Girls, in which topics of identity and popular culture are discussed critically. zainabamina.com

Nikita Gill is a bestselling poet and playwright who lives in the south of England. Her work predominantly explores folklore and mythology. She has written 7 collections of poetry and her novel in verse has been optioned for television by Peephole and Boatrocker Studios. She is a 3x Goodreads choice shortlisted writer, 2x CLIPPA shortlisted writer, and has also been longlisted for the Jhalak prize.

@nikita_gill for instagram/threads and @nktgill for Twitter

Cecilia Knapp is a poet and novelist and the Young People’s Laureate for London 2020/2021. She was shortlisted for the 2022 Forward prize for best single poem. She is the winner of the 2021 Ruth Rendell award and has been shortlisted for the Rebecca Swift Women’s prize. Her debut poetry collection Peach Pig was published by Corsair in 2022 and was The Observer’s poetry book of the month for October. Her poems have appeared in The Financial Times, Granta, and The White Review. She curated the anthology Everything is Going to be Alright: Poems for When you Really Need Them, published by Trapeze in 2021. Her debut novel Little Boxes is published by The Borough Press. In 2023, Little Boxes was longlisted for The Authors Club Best First Novel Award.

Twitter and Instagram @ceciliaknapp

Tatenda Naomi Matsvai (aka 2tender) is a facilitator and devised performance maker, working with spoken word poetry in theatrical and non-theatrical performance contexts. Tatenda's work is mainly bio mythical, infusing their lived experience with myth, to challenge colonial cosmologies. Their performances are joyful, participatory, and multidimensional. They are currently developing their co-written show Hot Orange with Halfmoon Theatre to tour the UK in the Autumn.

Tatenda’s work has won the Vault Origins award, been Offie nominated, and performed as part of Theatre Peckham, the Roundhouse Camden, The Cockpit for Voila Europe! festival and Between.Pomiędzy Literary Festival (Poland).

Richard Scott was born in London in 1981. His first book Soho (Faber & Faber, 2018) was a Gay’s the Word book of the year and shortlisted for the T S Eliot prize. Recent works include ‘Still Life with Rose’ in the Spring issue of Poetry Review and ‘love version of’ in 100 Queer Poems (Vintage). Richard’s poetry has been translated into German and French. He is a lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London where he also runs a poetry reading group, and he teaches poetry at the Faber Academy.

The R.A.P Party
Sat 30 Sep, 7.45pm

Esme Allman is a poet, writer, theatre maker and facilitator based in South East London. She is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores blackness, desire and (hi)story-making in individual and collective contexts.

Esme is a Roundhouse Resident Artist. As part of her residency at the Roundhouse, she wrote and performed her one-woman show Delectably Red in June 2022.

She has a background in participatory theatre, with experience working at Cardboard Citizens, Clean Break, and the Young Vic. She also has experience as a theatre maker and facilitator with several notable organisations including the Hammersmith Lyric, Fevered Sleep, Sydenham Arts, Talawa Theatre Company, The Bunker Theatre, Nuu Theatre, and ArtsEd.

Esme’s poetry has been featured in the anthology Articulations for Keeping the Light In published by flipped eye in July 2022, Roundhouse Poetry Collective Anthology We Have Never Seen Something Like This, POSTSCRIPT, Barbican Young Poets Anthology 19/20 and The Skinny.

Twitter and Instagram: @_esmeallman

mandisa apena is a cancer sun from south london. they write poems and are currently learning to do the splits. they run a fundraising night called 'soft requisitions' and they also dj.

mandisaapena.tumblr.com

Jeremiah Brown is a Black British-Jamaican writer and actor based in Croydon. He’s a Royal Court Writers Group, Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab, and Barbican Young Poet alum. His debut solo show Likkle Rum with Grandma had a sold out run at the Albany in 2019. Jeremiah’s commissions include Nationwide Building Society, St Paul’s Cathedral, UNESCO, and The Poetry Society. His Sugar Shots newsletter comes out every Wednesday where he offers you a likkle suttin suttin every week to make you think and feel.

Twitter and Instagram: @sugarjpoet

Troy Cabida (he/him) is a Filipino poet, producer, and librarian from south-west London. His recent poems appear in fourteen poems, bath magg, and 100 Queer Poems by Vintage. His debut pamphlet, War Dove, was published in 2020 by Bad Betty Press and he was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize for Poetry 2022. A Barbican Young Poet alumnus, Troy has served as producer for the London-based open mic night Poetry and Shaah, and currently works for the National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre.

Twitter and Instagram: @troycabida

Sarah McCreadie is a poet, performer and lesbian heart-throb from Cardiff. She’s performed her poetry from Newport to New York. Sarah’s poetry was published in 2022 by flipped eye publishing in Articulations for Keeping the Light In and she was named as one of Craig Charles’ Poets of 2022. Sarah is a Barbican Young Poet, a BBC 1Xtra ‘Words First’ poet, and former resident artist at the Roundhouse theatre. Her collaborations range from Vanity Fair to Match of the Day. You can find me and my poems on Twitter @Girl_Like_Sarah

Twitter: @Girl_Like_Sarah

Tatenda Naomi Matsvai (aka 2tender) is a facilitator and devised performance maker, working with spoken word poetry in theatrical and non-theatrical performance contexts. Tatenda's work is mainly bio mythical, infusing their lived experience with myth, to challenge colonial cosmologies. Their performances are joyful, participatory, and multidimensional. They are currently developing their co-written show Hot Orange with Halfmoon Theatre to tour the UK in the Autumn.

Tatenda’s work has won the Vault Origins award, been Offie nominated, and performed as part of Theatre Peckham, the Roundhouse Camden, The Cockpit for Voila Europe! festival and Between.Pomiędzy Literary Festival (Poland).

Alex Session is one of London's best loved party DJs, with an eclectic selection that blends the best of old and new music with no bias, as long as it's good.

Bandcamp: https://alexsession.bandcamp.com/
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/alex_session
Instagram: www.instagram.com/alex_session/
Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/Alex_Session

Antosh Wojcik is a poet, drummer and sound designer. His writing explores memory, time, heritage and glitches. His drumming and spoken word show, How To Keep Time was produced by Penned in the Margins and toured internationally in 2019, supported by Arts Council England. He co-wrote and sound designed the BFI short film Alo with Xenia Glen in 2023. His poems have been published in bath magg, Anthropocene and anthologised by Bad Betty Press and Colliding Lines.

Instagram: @_weirdtoday
Twitter @antoshwojcik

Jinhao Xie is a Barbican Young Poet and a member of Southbank Centre New Poets Collective 2021-2022. They are currently making their first pamphlet collection. Their work is in POETRY, Poetry Review, Harana, bath magg, Gutter Magazine and fourteen poems and anthologies, including Articulations for Keeping the Light In, Slam! You're Gonna Wanna Hear This edited by Nikita Gill, Instagram Poems for Every Day by National Poetry Library, and Re.Creation. They are interested in nature, the mundane, and the interpersonal. They love to cook for their beloved. You can find them @xie.jin.hao on Instagram.

Instagram: @xie.jin.hao

Fathima Zahra (she/her) is an Indian poet and performer based in London. She is an alum of the Barbican Young Poets and Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Her debut pamphlet sargam / swargam (ignitionpress, 2021) was selected for the PBS Pamphlet Choice.

Instagram: @zeeforzahra3.0
Twitter: @zeeforzahra