Apples and Snakes at Tate: Poetry Evening with Nick Makoha

Nick Makoha fled Uganda’s civil war and Idi Amin’s tyranny as a boy. Kingdom of Gravity is a searing, mysterious contemplation of exile, fatherhood and violence. In direct narrative terms the poems in this collection relate to the horrors of the civil war that ousted the brutal tyranny of Idi Amin in Uganda, a war of liberation that brought its own barbarous atrocities. In political terms the poems chart the impact of imperialism and neo-colonialism that lay behind those traumas in the life of the nation. In personal terms, the poems are framed between the contrary pulls of attachment and flight, exile and longing.

Nick will read from his work, followed by a Q & A and book signing. The Kingdom of Gravity was shortlisted for the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and published by Peepal Tree Press.

Biography
Nick Makoha is one of ten writers of The Complete Works programme for diversity and quality in British Poetry. He won the 2015 Brunel International Poetry Prize and the 2016 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize for his pamphlet Resurrection His debut collection Kingdom of Gravity was shortlisted for the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and nominated by The Guardian as one of the best books of 2017. He has been widely published in journals and anthologies. Nick is the director of the Youth Poetry Network through which he provides a charismatic and responsive approach to workshop facilitation in business and schools. As a former NESTA mentor he is an ongoing advocate of young people wishing to work in the Arts and Media. He has produced a one man show: My Father and Other Superheroes’ which explores rejection and acceptance.