My poem “Yarl’s Wood” has just been published on the excellent poetry site The Stare’s Nest. The site publishes ‘poems for a more hopeful world’ – something we certainly need at the moment. My poem is a palimpsest translation of Anne Askew’s “The Ballad Which Anne Askew Made and Sang When She Was in Newgate, 1546”. It draws …
Author Archives: Rachel Bower
Cora Greenhill’s ‘Artemis: The People’s Priestess’
Cora Greenhill’s Artemis: The People’s Priestess pulses with light, heat and movement. Just published by the wonderful Three Drops Press, the collection tells the ‘back story’ of Artemis: her power, sensuality and sexuality. The poems chart Artemis’ growth through a series of dramatic poems, each spoken by a different character. At the heart of the …
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Intersectional feminism, photography and poetry
As part of the Women’s Paths Seminar Series at the University of Leeds, I will be giving an informal talk which will combine my poetry, feminist arts work and thoughts on the urgency of intersectional work in the current political context. The event will take place on Tuesday 4 April from 5.15pm – 6.45pm in the School …
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Verse Matters #SheFest 2017
After an amazing Verse Matters in February (where we had about 100 people in the audience) and another brilliant Hive-Verse Matters young people’s open mic, we are back next Thursday 9 March @ The Moor Theatre Deli for a special event for International Women’s Day 2017. There will be powerful featured performances from Anna Percy (Stirred, Manchester), Carole Eades (Gorilla, Sheffield), Louise Clines (Broomhill Writers, …
John Berger,1926-2017
I was saddened yesterday to learn about the death of John Berger. Having spent some time in the wonderful John Berger Archive at the British Library, I am in the somewhat peculiar (and privileged) position of having read many of Berger’s letters, notebooks and manuscripts from the late twentieth century, and therefore feel that I …
Review: The Book in Africa
This is the proof of a review I recently published in Textual Cultures 10.1 (2016): 85-88. Davis, Caroline and David Johnson, eds., The Book in Africa: Critical Debates. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. ISBN 978-1-137-40161-8. Pp: xii + 280. Hardback $95. This volume introduces a range of debates about the book in Africa through an impressive set …
Sheffield to Aleppo
My new poem, Sheffield to Aleppo, November 2016, was recently published on Wildcat Dispatches: for Dangerous Times. You can read the poem, along with an important piece on Syria by Mark Boothroyd and Wildcat’s Statement on Aleppo on the Wildcat Dispatches website. This is the poem in full: Sheffield to Aleppo, November 2016 It’s only …
Wildcat Dispatches: for Dangerous Times
I am excited to announce that the first issue of Wildcat Dispatches: for Dangerous Times is launched today: a small labour of collective love and fury and hopefully the first of many. I am proud to have written an article with Jake Phillips for the first issue. We argue for the importance of acknowledging the links between sexism and racism, particularly in …
Reclaim The Day #ReclaimTheNight 2016
I’m proud to be reading at #ReclaimtheNight in Sheffield next Friday (25 Nov). We need this event now more than ever, especially in the dangerous political context in which we are now living. The shocking triumph of Donald Trump last week clearly shows that widespread and popular chauvinism and xenophobia are alive and kicking. Personally speaking, given my own recent …
Full Moon and Foxglove Anthology
I am excited to see that the latest anthology from the wonderful independent publisher, Three Drops From a Cauldron is now available. Full Moon & Foxglove: An Anthology of Witches and Witchcraft contains over sixty poems and flash fiction pieces, including my new poem “Shard”. The Anthology, edited by Kate Garrett and her brilliant team, explores one of the most …
Keep up the fight
Trump’s election victory this morning has left many reeling. It is time to grieve, but not time to abandon the fight against injustice, xenophobia racism, misogyny and sexual violence. Over the last 18 months we have grown a powerful community in Sheffield in which people have felt safe enough to come to events to share their …
Rachel Bower 