Poetry with a Punch

Testament is a writer, rapper and world record breaking human beatboxer. His play Black Men Walking was nominated at the UK Theatre Awards and the Writer Guild Awards. Testament’s work includes the celebrated Hip-Hop album Homecut: No Freedom Without Sacrifice and play Blake Remixed. He’s recently presented BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Wick.

Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow, is a celebrated writer, playwright, and educator. She has received numerous fellowships, including from Cave Canem and the Rauschenberg Foundation. She is the founder of the Woke Baby Book Fair, and the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. Browne holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Marymount Manhattan College and is the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center.

A perfectly calm storm on the spoken word scene, Tasneim Zyada is a published Palestinian-British writer. Her work explores the generational stories that rise to the surface within her own. Having started out in 2015 as a regular performer at London open mics, her words have since taken her internationally. She has been featured in several festivals – notably Shubbak, AWAN, Bloomsbury Festival, PalArt Fest and recently in Athen’s International Video Poetry Festival. Zyada’s other accolades include facilitating sold out poetry workshops and voiceover work – voicing a character in George the Poet’s multi-award winning podcast. Currently, Zyada is writing her debut poetry collection to be published in 2024/25.

Rakaya Fetuga is a poet and writer from north-west London. Rakaya is winner of the national Roundhouse Slam and international Rooftop Rhythms Slam and has received writing awards from the New York TV & Film Festival and Royal Holloway University of London. Rakaya’s writing has spearheaded an array of campaigns by organisations and brands including Bloomberg Philanthropies, the UNFPA, L’Occitane and Cartier. Having contributed poetry to anthologies published by HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan and Penguin Random House, Rakaya is currently working on a fiction novel. Rakaya is a regular workshop facilitator for the Poetry Society and All Change Arts, helping young writers nurture their talent, and produces performance events for Rumi’s Cave in north-west London.

Ralph Dartford was founder of the influential collective A Firm of Poets, who toured nationally with artists such as Hollie McNish, Zena Edwards and Luke Wright amongst other leading spoken word artists. His first pamphlet, Cigarettes, Beer and Love, was published by Ossett Observer Presents in 2013, followed by Recovery Songs, published by Valley Press in 2019, and Hidden Music in October 2021. In 2024, his third collection for Valley Press, House Anthems, will be published to complete a trilogy of themed work. Ralph is the poetry editor at Northern Gravy and is currently studying for a Creative Writing PhD at the University of Huddersfield. For gainful employment, Ralph works for the National Literacy Trust as a Project Manager within the Criminal Justice department.

Akeim Toussaint Buck is an interdisciplinary performer and maker, born in Jamaica and raised in England. Graduating from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2014, his choreographic work includes: Snakebox’s PLAY, Windows of Displacement, Reckoning, Sib Y Osis, Beatmotion, Souls & Cells. Film work includes Galvanise & Displaced. Akeim’s work has been supported by Yorkshire Dance, Leeds Playhouse, Leeds Inspired, Geraldine Connor Foundation, the Arts Foundation Futures Award, IRIE! Dance Theatre, Spin Arts, RJC, Deda, Fabric, Streatham Space Project, Serendipity, NSCD, Sadlers Wells and Arts Council England and more.