POETRY CLUB
NICK MAKOHA & ROGER ROBINSON
hosted by EKOW ESHUN
POETRY CLUB:
NICK MAKOHA & ROGER ROBINSON
hosted by EKOW ESHUN
PANDORA
NICK MAKOHA
Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet and playwright based in London. His debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize and was one of the Guardian’s Best Books of the Year. His poems have appeared in The New York Times, the Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Wasafiri, Boston Review, and Callaloo. He is the founder of Obsidian Foundation, winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz Prize and the Poetry London Prize.
“In this place you are no longer the chorus … In any future, remember you are a New Carthaginian. ”
In his latest collection, The New Carthaginians, time – and with it the world – is out of joint. A hijacked plane lands at Entebbe International Airport in 1976, triggering the crisis that will lead to Idi Amin’s Uganda becoming a pariah state and, within a few years, to the young Nick Makoha’s flight from the country. A mysterious writer daubs poetic slogans on the walls of late-’70s New York City, signing them SAMO©. Three characters who are also one – the Poet, a Black Icarus and a resurrected Jean-Michel Basquiat –journey through a time that is both our own and not, watching TV, discussing art and literature and tucking their wings into their jackets on the way to airport security.
Concerned throughout with flight and falling, The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering originality: a work by an author at the height of his powers, in which the familiar Western canons of art, history and philosophy are prised apart and reassembled in a new configuration.
Drawing on Basquiat’s technique of the ‘exploded’ collage, our heroes’ odyssey gathers the symbols of a new mythos, through which the othering of Black life might be undone and the stage set for some fresh emergence, some transfigured understanding of myth and life. “Hold that note,” writes the poet.
ROGER ROBINSON
Roger Robinson is a writer and educator who has taught and performed worldwide and is an experienced workshop leader and lecturer on poetry. He was chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the black-British writing canon. He received commissions from The National Trust, London Open House, BBC, The National Portrait Gallery, V&A, INIVA, MK Gallery and Theatre Royal Stratford East where he also was an associate artist. He is an alumnus of The Complete Works.
Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019, the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020 and a Royal Society of Literature Fellow, his latest collection A Portable Paradise was a New Statesman Book of the Year. He co-founded Spoke Lab and the international writing collective Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is lead vocalist and lyricist for King Midas Sound and has also recorded solo albums with Jahtari Records.
EKOW ESHUN
A curator, writer and broadcaster. Described as a “cultural polymath” by The Guardian, he has been at the heart of international creative culture for several decades, curating exhibitions, authoring books, presenting documentaries and chairing high-profile lectures. His work stretches the span of identity, style, masculinity, art and culture.
He was the first Black editor of a major magazine in the UK (Arena Magazine in 1997) and continued to break ground as the first Black director of a major arts organisation, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (2005-2010). As Chairman of the commissioning group for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, he leads one of the world’s most famous public art projects.
In July 2022, he curated In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery in London a landmark exhibition of visionary Black artists exploring myth, science fiction and Afrofuturism.
His most recent exhibition, The Time Is Always Now, is a landmark study of the Black figure and its representation in contemporary art.
In July 2022, he curated In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery in London a landmark exhibition of visionary Black artists exploring myth, science fiction and Afrofuturism. His most recent exhibition, The Time Is Always Now, is a landmark study of the Black figure and its representation in contemporary art.
His latest book is a work of creative nonfiction called The Strangers, published by Penguin which conjures the voices of five very different men. Ira Aldridge: nineteenth century actor and playwright. Matthew Henson: polar explorer. Frantz Fanon: psychiatrist and political philosopher. Malcolm X: activist leader. Justin Fashanu: million-pound footballer. He tells their stories with breathtaking lyricism and empathy, capturing both the hostility and the beauty they experienced in the world. And he locates them within a wider landscape of Black art, culture, history and politics which stretches from Africa to Europe to North America and the Caribbean.
The Coronet Theatre is a risk-taking, international arts venue in a restored and re-imagined Grade II listed building in Notting Hill Both its programme and the building’s restoration are curated by Artistic Director, Anda Winters.
Our year-round multi-disciplinary programme of world-class drama, dance, music, poetry and visual arts in our main auditorium and studio space welcomes our own productions as well as visiting artists, including many UK and World Premieres.
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THE CORONET THEATRE TEAM
Artistic Director & CEO
Anda Winters
General Manager
Andy McDonald
Finance Manager
Andrew Michel
Company & Production Coordinator
Emma Smith Producer
Daphne Seale
Associate Producer
Cathy Lewis
Consultant Producer
Hetty Shand
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Elliot Hall
Press Representative
Sharon Kean
Poetry Coordinator
Marion Manning
Audience Experience Manager
Amelia Campbell
Theatre Administrator / PA to the
Artistic Director
Emma Zetterberg
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Esme Bishop
Duty Managers
Francesca Battinieri, Joshua ColeBrown, Adrielle Feliciano, Maria Lisberg-Jonasson, Joanna Papanastassiou, Tatiana Martinez
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Ivana Dieli
Front of House Staff
Brian Maitland, Andreane Rellou, Ewa Emini, Stefanie Bruckner, Juliet Dempsey, Katrina Foster, Sua Tsubokura-Aguiriano, Hazel Townsend, Kelsey Moebius, Thea Gavanski, Aishani Ghosh, Eugénie Bakker, Emma Laird-Craig, Scarlett Stitt, Daniel Timoney, Dominika Jarečná, Hamza Mullick, Dong Ting Huang
Trustees
Linda Bernhardt, Mike Fisher, Mimi Gilligan, Jane Quinn, Anda Winters, Bill Winters (Chair)
