Updated 10 January 2021: Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology is now available.
Edited by Ambrose Musiyiwa and introduced by Claudia Webbe, Member of Parliament for Leicester East, Poetry and Settled Status for All presents 114 poems and short prose pieces from 97 writers from around the world exploring themes that include lived experience of migration, refugee and undocumented migrant experiences, and the hostile environment.
The anthology features contributions from seasoned writers with many publications to their names alongside emerging voices and has been described variously as “powerful”, “thought-provoking” and “effective”.
The anthology is inspired by and builds on how, around the world, campaigners are asking governments to give Settled Status, Indefinite Leave to Remain and humane pathways to citizenship to all in their jurisdictions who need such status.
Updated 17 December 2021: Poetry and Settled Status for All: Readings and Conversation which was held online on Saturday, 4 December 2021 as part of the 8th annual Leicester Human Rights Arts and Film Festival is now accessible online here.
The event featured poetry and conversation exploring themes that include: migrant, undocumented migrant and refugee experiences, the hostile environment, and how, around the world people are calling on governments to give Settled Status, Indefinite Leave to Remain or citizenship to all who need it.
The event was a preview of the anthology, Poetry and Settled Status for All which is coming out from CivicLeicester in January and featured contributions from poets: Aryan Ashory, Birgit Friedrich, Barrington Gordon, GPT-2 (a deep learning model from OpenAI that was fine-tuned on a 1.2MB text file containing poems from Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, Jane Campion, Roald Dahl and William Blake) represented by Nils Köbis, a researcher from the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development where, with Luca Mossink, he conducts research on GPT-2)), Zsófia Hacsek, Cynthia Rodríguez Juárez, Monica Manolachi, Hubert Moore, Ambrose Musiyiwa, Chad Norman, Catherine Okoronkwo, David Owen, Michele Witthaus, and Gregory Woods.
Munya Radzi, from Regularise, a migrant-founded grassroots collective and campaign group made up of migrants and British citizens that seek to improve the quality of life of undocumented migrants living in the UK also gave a short talk about the organisation, the work they have been doing, and ‘Building Back Better with Undocumented People’, a report they produced which looks at how immigration is understood in Britain and which highlights how, as the UK attempts to recover from the pandemic and get to grips with the multiple challenges of our time—from COVID-19, to long-term and recent labour shortages, Brexit, and climate change—including and involving all people who are living in the UK is the only way to true and sustainable economic and social recovery.
The 8th annual Leicester Human Rights Arts and Film Festival invites you to Poetry and Settled Status for All: Readings and Conversation, an online evening featuring poems and short prose exploring themes that include:
- migrant, undocumented migrant and refugee experiences
- the hostile environment, and
- how, around the world, people are calling on governments to give Settled Status, Indefinite Leave to Remain or citizenship to all who need it.
The event takes place online on Saturday, 4 December 2021, from 6pm till 7.30pm.
Book your ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-and-settled-status-for-all-readings-and-conversation-tickets-214818908137
The event is a preview of the anthology, Poetry and Settled Status for All which is coming out from CivicLeicester shortly.
Other books CivicLeicester has published include Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2020) and Per terra e per mare: Poesie per chi è in cerca di rifugio (2020, translated by Pietro Deandrea).
The Leicester Human Rights Arts and Film Festival is a grassroots festival that aims to draw attention to human rights issues at home and abroad. The festival starts on December 4 and runs through to December 10. The festival also aims to draw attention to Human Rights Day which is marked on December 10 every year around the world.