Released 31st October 2021 // 46 pages // 978-1-915079-98-5
Poetry Ambassadors presents the work of three exceptional new poets from the Solent region. It is the first publication from the Poetry Ambassadors mentoring scheme, a new programme supporting emerging literary talent co-founded by ArtfulScribe, Winchester Poetry Festival, and Will May from the University of Southampton.
The work of these three poets takes in everything from Tolstoy to the Supremes, birth certificates to the underworld. Arresting, playful, and compelling, here are poems to challenge, provoke, and inspire.
PRAISE FOR POETRY AMBASSADORS:
April's poems are fierce, fearless and ambitious. They're full of images that surprise me every time I read them and lines which jangle my spine. She conjures a world in which figures wear their "shed skin / as a blindfold", therapists "graverob out mindfulness activities" and "pain is a nuclear wallpaper". April's is a voice with incisive claws and iridescent wings: I'm so glad to have stood alongside her as it hatches and very excited to see where it flies.
- Caleb Parkin
Having grown up in a working-class, mixed-heritage British and Caribbean household, Kaycee Hill's influences range from hiphop artists such as Floetry and Sade to lyric poets Sylvia Plath and John Keats. An urban voyeur, she brings the environmental attentiveness of eco-poetry to inner-city life and landscapes: from parks to prisons to the inside of a care home during the pandemic. Kaycee's writing is notable for its linguistic innovation, creative imagery and depth of emotion. Her innate talent is matched by the suppleness and precision of her craft - this is a killer combination and indicates great promise for the future.
- Aviva Dautch
'I laugh because oh my god, I've gone mad. I've started speaking to you, / to a fucking seagull.' Eve's writing is crisp, striking, and uniquely resonant. They use language that is both grounded and multi-faceted while exploring timely and necessary themes about class, mental health, and loneliness. A poet of poise and power. One to watch.
- Romalyn Ante
