Lyrical Mehfil

Michael Pedersen: is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author. His prose debut, Boy Friends, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 to luscious reviews in both the UK and North America and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice 2022. He’s produced two acclaimed collections of poetry with a third, The Cat Prince & Other Poems, due for release in July 2023 with Little Brown. Pedersen won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, the John Mather’s Trust Rising Star of Literature Award and was a finalist for the 2018 ‘Writer of the Year’ at The Scottish Culture Awards. Pedersen also founded the prize-winning literary collective Neu! Reekie! and has attracted praise from the likes Stephen Fry, Kae Tempest, Irvine Welsh, Maggie Smith, Jackie Kay, Sara Pascoe and more.

Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of Another Way to Split Water, the pamphlets Hinge and Faces that Fled the Wind, and the collaborative essay, Second Memory, which was co-authored with Pratyusha. She is co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, a co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics, and she currently teaches at the University of Cambridge. Alycia received an MFA from the University of Oregon and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Her awards include the CBC Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.

Isabelle Baafi is the Reviews Editor at Poetry London. Her debut pamphlet Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020) won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a PBS Pamphlet Choice. Her writing has been published in the TLS, The Poetry Review, The London Magazine, Aesthetica Magazine, bath magg, and elsewhere. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic, an Obsidian Foundation Fellow, and an editor at Magma. She is currently studying Creative Writing at the University of Oxford, and writing her debut collection.

Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa is a British born Barbadian raised choreo-poet and PhD student at the University of Leeds in Cultural Studies. Her interdisciplinary art, braids dance and poetry on the page and stage. Safiya is an Obsidian Foundation fellow and an Apples & Snakes/ Jerwood Arts Poetry in Performance recipient. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals including Poetry London, Poetry Review and Wasafiri. She is also a national and international spoken word champion and came third place in The London Magazine Poetry Prize (2022). Her debut poetry collection Cane, Corn & Gully (Out-Spoken Press) arrived in November 2022. Cane, Corn & Gully has been shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and Barbados’ Gine On People’s Choice Book of The Year Award.

Dr Anthony Joseph is an award winning Trinidad-born poet, novelist, academic and musician. He is the author of five poetry collections and three novels. His 2018 novel Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award, and long listed for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. His most recent publication is the experimental novel The Frequency of Magic. In 2019, he was awarded a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship. As a musician, he has released eight critically acclaimed albums, and in 2020 received a Paul Hamblyn Foundation Composers Award. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kings College, London. His new poetry collection Sonnets for Albert was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry 2022

Sukina Noor is a poet, spoken-word artist, playwright, workshop facilitator, educator, artistic curator, writer and public speaker. Sukina has facilitated creative writing workshops across the world empowering participants to use their words as a way to access their authentic voice and awaken the voice of the heart. She has played an intrinsic role within the British Muslim creative communities as a performer and events organiser and has curated platforms for many national and international Muslim artists to express themselves.

Sukina holds a BA (Hons) Degree in English Literature and Caribbean Studies and is currently pursuing an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes with a specific focus on the poetry of the Sufi Mystics of West Africa. Sukina released her debut poetry collection Love and Longing: Yearning for the Face of God in June 2022.

Ambareen Haseeb Ambar is a renowned poet and critic, TV anchor and analyst based in Karachi. She has written five books, including the recently published Tum Bi Na, and is also editor of book series Asaleeb. She has received numerous accolades including The Parveen Shakir Trust’s Aks-e-Khusboo Award and the UBL Literary Award.