Launch reading for Versus Versus: 100 poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets
Do join Bloodaxe for this launch event for Rachael Boast's international anthology Versus Versus: 100 poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets, published on Thursday 22 May. Rachael will be joined by the three poets who helped on the book as its Advocacy and Advisory Panel, Karthika Naïr (India/France), Chisom Okafor (Nigeria) and Daniel Sluman (UK), who also have poems included in the anthology.
The event will also include film clips of twelve other poets reading their poems from Versus Versus: Han Mac Tu (Vietnam), Kathryn Gray (Wales), Andy Jackson (Australia), Kate Davis (England), Riyad al-Saleh al Hussein (Syria), Khairani Barokka (Indonesia/UK), Naomi Ortiz (Mexico), Levent Beskardes (Turkey/LSF), Jack Mapanje (Malawi/UK), Jamie Hale (UK), Lateef McLeod (USA) and Nuala Watt (Scotland).
This free Bloodaxe launch event will be streamed on YouTube Live and will be available below or here: https://youtube.com/live/07usVjBxJo8. Available to watch live or later via YouTube.
To receive reminder events about the event, you can register on TicketTailor here: https://buytickets.at/bloodaxebooks/1664193
Rachael Boast is a British writer, editor and disability advocate, navigating Ichthyosis and related conditions. She has published four collections of poetry with Picador, Sidereal (2011), Pilgrim's Flower (2013), Void Studies (2016) and Hotel Raphael (2021). Her poems have been anthologised in Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches, 2017), Staying Human (Bloodaxe Books, 2020) and 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren, 2021).
Karthika Naïr was born with RDEB inversa, a rare disorder of the skin and mucous membranes. Even minor friction – sneezes, handshakes – can result in erosions or blisters resembling third degree burns. When not combating triffids in hospital, she can usually be found around dance studios. Sometimes, that results in books (A Different Distance, The Honey Hunter…), sometimes in dance/theatre productions with colleagues (Beneath the Music, ROOH, Mariposa…). Sometimes, all of the above (Until the Lions). Originally from India, she lives in Paris.
Chisom Okafor is a Nigerian poet and clinical nutritionist, presently living in Alabama where he is an MFA in Creative Writing candidate and Graduate Council Fellow. His poems, which mostly explore his chronic illness, appear in The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, an anthology of disabled and neurodivergent poets (ed. Hannah Soyer) and In-Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers (ed. Rebecca Burke). He has received support from the Sundress Academy for the Arts and Commonwealth Foundation.
Daniel Sluman is a 38-year-old poet and disability rights activist. He co-edited the first major UK Disability poetry anthology, Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and has published three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press. His most recent collection, single window (2021), was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
Many thanks to the Royal Society of Literature and to the judges of the 2023 Literature Matters Awards for selecting this anthology as one of the winning entries.
To order copies of Versus Versus direct from Bloodaxe, please click on this link (books will be available from the beginning of May).
https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/versus-versus-1375
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VERSUS VERSUS
100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets
Poetry Book Society Recommendation
The word versus means one thing pitched against another. To be versus versus, therefore, is a paradox, but paradox can be helpful – it can open a space for deeper thought. This anthology aims to be such a space. It brings together one hundred deaf, disabled and neurodivergent poets from across the international arena, from emerging voices to world-renowned authors, and offers an urgent redress, unpicking many misapprehensions and misrepresentations.
The reader will encounter poems of love and pain, self-care and companionship; poems which challenge cultural, medical and political agendas and policies. There are war poems, poems as acts of witness and solidarity, poems which address the impact of the climate emergency. There are humorous poems, nature poems, and much more.
The selection also draws together poetry in a wide variety of styles and forms, and from different traditions, such as haiku, renga, sonnet, villanelle, prose poem, performance poem, and sign language.
Building on the work of decades of disability justice advocacy, Versus Versus offers a poetry of assertiveness and immense vitality.
[15 April 2025]
