Roger Robinson & Johny Pitts

In 2021, award-winning poet Roger Robinson and acclaimed photographer Johny Pitts rented a red Mini Cooper and followed the coast clockwise in search of Black Britain. From London to Land's End to Bristol to Blackpool to John O'Groats to Scarborough to Southend on Sea, Johny photographed Black British people loving, laughing, hanging out with friends and family, commuting, working, and protesting. In response, Roger wrote poems and essays about light, nature, music, activism, living in a society that rejects you, and black joy. Join us to celebrate Johny’s gorgeous photographs and Roger’s fantastic new poems, collected in Home Is Not a Place.

Roger is the winner of the 2019 TS Eliot Prize and the 2020 RSL Ondaatje Prize for A Portable Paradise and was chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the Black British writing canon. Johny is the author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe, which won the 2020 Jhalak Prize, and the co-host of Open Book on BBC Radio 4. Presented in partnership with Speaking Volumes and Manchester Poetry Library.

This event will be BSL interpreted