Black Lives Matter

Last year I submitted some poems for a new poetry anthology - “Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World.” It was edited by Ambrose Musiyiwa, a writer and activist based in Leicester, who’d been impressed with the size and energy of a Black Lives Matter protest there, in response to the killing of George Floyd. He put out an international call for poems on this theme, and was deluged with hundreds. The book was published in June 2020, with over a hundred poems filling 150 pages. Ambrose was keen to promote it, but although I was sympathetic I didn’t see myself as central to this movement. I told him that I was a member of two writing groups, both all white, mainly comprising writers over fifty in rural areas. “That’s fine,” he said. “You get the audience, I’ll supply the writers.” And that’s what happened, with substantial help from Steve Pottinger and Colin Wells. . Last night, for an hour over zoom, we ran a reading which included nine contributors to this collection, each of whom read their poem from the anthology. Six black, three white. Six women, three men (but not the same). In an hour a varied audience got a taste of very different voices and angles, and also the chance to hear from the poets about how they viewed their work, and its impact on this issue. As Hannibal used to say when I watched the A-team with my kids., “I love it when a plan comes together.”