Metic Masterclass: Writing as a stranger, with Nick Makoha

The Forward Prize-shortlisted UK poet leads a hand-on session exploring the “metic experience,” exploring issues of identity, race, and migration through the eyes of foreigners and exiles. an engaging and provoking poetry masterclass with Nick Makoha, winner of the Brunel University African Poetry Prize 2015. It explores the Black Metic Experience of poets and investigates how writers in exile are differentiated from natives. As a writer in exile himself, Nick uses Metic to explain the phenomena experienced by black writers in the UK and the US. The aim is to investigate each participants’ own unique Metic experience.

A metic is an individual whose allegiances are split between their homeland and the country they are now resident in. Such an experience impacts the work of writers. With Nick, you will investigate how black writers in exile are differentiated from natives. As a writer in exile he uses this to explain the phenomena experienced by black writers in the UK and the US.

What will you do in the workshop? The aim over the workshop is to discover your unique metic experience and use that to forge your writing process. The workshop will also include writing prompts to help kickstart your creativity.

Who is the workshop for? This course is for anyone interested in exploring issues of identity, race, and migration. Exercises will be short and accessible to writers and readers of all levels of experience. This course is primarily aimed at people from BAME backgrounds, but all are welcome. Workshop participants are encouraged to bring samples of their poetry writing to work on and discuss.