Lemn Sissay

If you would like to be a part of the virtual book signing you will need to purchase a separate ticket here.

All Nottingham Poetry Festival events will be taking place online.

Bafta nominated International prize winning writer Lemn Sissay was awarded an MBE for services to literature by The Queen of England, The Pen Pinter Prize and a Points of Light Award from The Prime Minister. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The University of Huddersfield, The University of Manchester, The University of Kent and The University of Brunel. He won a Bikila award with the Ethiopian music legend Teddy Afro. His 2017 radio two-parter “Lemn Sissay’s Homecoming” was nominated for a Palm D’Or. Amongst other awards are a NESTA new radical award, and a RIMA award for his play Something Dark. Lemn is a poet, playwright, artist performer and broadcaster. He has read on stage throughout the world: from The Library of Congress in The United States to The University of Addis Ababa, from Singapore to Sri Lanka, Bangalore to Dubai, from Bali to Greenland and Wigan library. His memoir ‘My Name Is Why’ is published by Canongate Books 2019. He was the first poet commissioned to write for the London Olympics and wrote the official poem for the FA Cup. If you Google the name “Lemn Sissay” all the returning hits will be about him. There’s only one person in the world named Lemn Sissay.

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Support comes from Daron Carey & Sophie Sparham.

Daron Carey, slam winning poet, is dynamic, vibrant and insightful. He crafts and performs poems featuring flawed characters with whom he is proud to claim kinship.
Drawing upon an extended residency in the parlour of hedonism and excess, he emerged with poems reeking of realism whilst others are served up soaked in surrealism and rich in imagery.

Sophie Sparham is a writer from Derby. She has written commissions for BBC Radio 4, The V&A and The People’s History Museum.
Sophie co-hosts the poetry night ‘Word Wise’ which won Best Spoken Word Night at the 2019 Saboteur Awards. Last year she became the first poet to perform at the metal festival Bloodstock Open Air.
Her new collection will be released by Verve Poetry Press May 2021.