Brainwaves: Navigating Our Mental States with John McCullough, Nafeesa Hamid & Vicky Morris
Sunday 28th May
Theatre Deli, Arley St, S2 4QP
18:00 – 19:30
£3 – £12
[Captioned & Wheelchair Accessible]
Event Description
This event brings together three poets whose work explores the different ways in which our brains work; whether that’s an exploration of anxiety, mental illness, or the experience of neurodiversity. These poets encourage us to think differently, to think about thinking; to extend our empathy to brains beyond our own.
About the Poets
John McCullough lives in Hove. His third book of poems, Reckless Paper Birds, was published with Penned in the Margins and won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. ‘Flower of Sulphur’ was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. His fourth collection, Panic Response, was published by Penned in the Margins in 2022 and was a Book of the Year in The Telegraph as well as being included in The Times’ list of Notable New Poetry Books of 2022. John’s other awards include the Polari First Book Prize. He teaches creative writing at the University of Brighton and for organizations including the Arvon Foundation.
Nafeesa Hamid is a poet; playwright; educator; performer; and creative producer active since 2012. She was born in Pakistan, bred in Birmingham, and uses the intersectionality of her identities to inform her work. Her debut poetry collection Besharam (2018, Verve Poetry Press) was highly commended in the Forward Prizes 2019. She is subsequently published in Forward Poems of the Decade 2011-2020 (2021, Faber Poetry). She is also published in The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write, a (2017, Saqi Books) anthology edited by Sabrina Mahfouz. Nafeesa has appeared on BBC Bitesize; BBC Radio 4 Comedy; The Verb; as well as at literary festivals across the country. She is currently developing her first full-length play about corner shops, magic, faith, and worship.
Nafeesa is a big fan of large bodies of water, rambling (talkin’ and walkin’), and petting other people’s pets.
Vicky Morris is a British/Welsh poet, teacher and mentor. Her debut pamphlet If All This Never Happened was a winner of the Munster Fool for Poetry international Chapbook Competition and shortlisted for Best Poetry Pamphlet in the Saboteur Awards 2021. Her poems have appeared widely in journals including: The Rialto and Poetry Review, and placed in competitions including first place in the Prole Laureate 2019 and the Aurora Prize 2020. Vicky has built opportunities for young and emerging writers for many years, founding Hive in 2016, which led to a Sarah Nulty Award in 2019. She is a recent Arvon/Jerwood mentee. www.vickymorris.co.uk
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