Momtaza Mehri | |
|---|---|
 Mehri in 2019 | |
| Born | 1995 (age 28–29) |
| Nationality | Somali-British |
| Notable work | Bad Diaspora Poems (2023) |
| Style | Poet and essayist |
| Awards | Out-Spoken Page Poetry Prize, Forward Prize for Best First Collection |
Momtaza Mehri (born 1995) is a Somali-British poet and essayist. [1]
Momtaza Mehri is of Somali heritage and grew up in Kilburn, north-west London, and Birmingham in "the kind of household where if you're getting shouted at by your aunt to come downstairs, in one sentence she will use Somali, Arabic, Italian and English." [2] She lives in Kilburn, and has trained as biomedical scientist. [3]
Mehri began writing for publication in 2014.
In 2016–2017, she was featured in DAZED , [4] BuzzFeed [5] BBC Radio 4, [6] Poetry Society of America; [7] Mask Magazine, [8] SAND Journal, [9] and Frontier Poetry. [10] She became a member of The Complete Works mentoring programme and went on to win the Out-Spoken Page Poetry Prize (2017) and to publish a pamphlet, Sugah. Lump. Prayer with Akashic Books.
In 2018, Mehri won third prize in the National Poetry Competition and was named the Young People's Laureate of London. [1]
In 2019, Mehri won the Manchester Poetry Prize for unpublished writing, [11] and published a pamphet with Goldsmiths Press.
In 2022, Mehri was shortlisted for the Observer/Antony Burgess Prize for Arts journalism. [12]
In 2023, Mehri won an Eric Gregory Award and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection [13] with Bad Diaspora Poems. [14] Mehri then took up the position of Jessica Bardsley Poet in Residence at Homerton College Cambridge. [15]
Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.
Simon Robert Armitage is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds.
Pascale Petit, is a French-born British poet of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. She was born in Paris and grew up in France and Wales. She trained as a sculptor at the Royal College of Art and was a visual artist for the first part of her life. She has travelled widely, particularly in the Peruvian and Venezuelan Amazon and India.
George Szirtes is a British poet and translator from the Hungarian language into English. Originally from Hungary, he has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life after coming to the country as a refugee at the age of eight. Szirtes was a judge for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Grace Nichols FRSL is a Guyanese poet who moved to Britain in 1977, before which she worked as a teacher and journalist in Guyana. Her first collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. In December 2021, she was announced as winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Imtiaz Dharker is a Pakistan-born British poet, artist, and video film maker. She won the Queen's Gold Medal for her English poetry and was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University from January 2020.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Carol Rumens FRSL is a British poet.
Selima Hill is a British poet. She has published twenty poetry collections since 1984. Her 1997 collection, Violet, was shortlisted for the most important British poetry awards: the Forward Poetry Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. She was selected as recipient of the 2022 King's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Warsan Shire is a British writer, poet, editor and teacher, who was born to Somali parents in Kenya. In 2013, she was awarded the inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize, chosen from a shortlist of six candidates out of a total 655 entries. Her words "No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark", from the poem "Conversations about Home ", have been called "a rallying call for refugees and their advocates".
Helen Mort is a British poet and novelist. She is a five-time winner of the Foyle Young Poets award, received an Eric Gregory Award from The Society of Authors in 2007, and won the Manchester Poetry Prize Young Writer Prize in 2008. In 2010, she became the youngest ever poet-in-residence at the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. In the same year she was shortlisted for the Picador Prize and won the Norwich Café Writers' Poetry Competition with a poem called "Deer". She was the Derbyshire Poet Laureate from 2013 to 2015. In 2014, she won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize for "Division Street".
Malika Booker is a British writer, poet and multi-disciplinary artist, who is considered "a pioneer of the present spoken word movement" in the UK. Her writing spans different genres of storytelling, including poetry, theatre, monologue, installation and education, and her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies. Organizations for which she has worked include Arts Council England, the BBC, British Council, Wellcome Trust, National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arvon, and Hampton Court Palace.
Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf is a contemporary Somali poet who has lived in exile in Britain since over 25 years.
Maura Dooley is a British poet and writer. She has published five collections of poetry and edited several anthologies. She is the winner of the Eric Gregory Award in 1987 and the Cholmondeley Award in 2016, and was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize in 1997 and again in 2015. Her poetry collections Life Under Water (2008) and Kissing A Bone (1996) were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.
Niall Campbell, is a Scottish poet. He has published two poetry collections and a poetry pamphlet. He was a recipient of the Eric Gregory Award in 2011, winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award in 2014, and was recipient of the Saltire First Book of the Year award.
Poetry School is a national arts organisation, registered charity and adult education centre providing creative writing tuition, with teaching centres throughout England as well as online courses and downloadable activities. It was founded in 1997 by poets Mimi Khalvati, Jane Duran and Pascale Petit. Poetry School offers an accredited Master's degree in Writing Poetry, delivered in both London and Newcastle, in collaboration with Newcastle University. Online courses are delivered via CAMPUS, a social network dedicated to poetry.
Major poetry related events which took place worldwide during 2019 are outlined below under different sections. This includes poetry books released during the year in different languages, major literary awards, poetry festivals and events, besides anniversaries and deaths of renowned poets etc. Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a British-born Ghanaian poet.
The Complete Works was a national development programme for Black and Asian poets in England, 2008–2020, created on the initiative of Bernardine Evaristo, which mentored many major prizewinners and went on to inspire similar schemes.
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