Lovers of poetry will have the opportunity to help celebrate the publishing debut of writer Jannine Horsford at an upcoming event hosted by the Bocas Lit Fest.
Horsford, winner of a Bocas Emerging Writers Fellowship in 2022, will launch her debut poetry chapbook Jurassic Coast on Saturday 28 September at 3.30 pm, at The Writers Centre, 14 Alcazar Street, St. Clair.
Published by Peekash Press, Jurassic Coast is a sequence of poems inspired by Horsford’s time living on the south coast of England. The poems bring together a sensuous immersion in the rural landscape with the conundrum of being a stranger in a place imperfectly known, haunted by memories.
“These poems have a sophisticated lightness of touch,” writes Hannah Lowe, author of the Costa Book Award–winning collection The Kids, “always closely observed and brimming with sensory language and image.”
Horsford will be joined at the launch by guest poet Desirée Seebaran, herself the winner of the 2021 Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize, administered by the Bocas Lit Fest. Seebaran will read from her own book in progress, and debut a chapbook version of a poem originally commissioned by the Bocas Lit Fest in 2020.
The publication of Jurassic Coast is the final stage of Horsford’s Bocas Emerging Writers Fellowship, which also included a cash award and a year’s mentorship. The other Bocas Emerging Writers Fellow appointed in 2022 was fiction writer Rajiv Ramkhalawan, whose chapbook The Birthday Cake will be published simultaneously, and formally launched later in 2024.
The fellowships were made possible by generous donations from Canisia Lubrin, winner of the overall 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature; Dionne Brand, winner of the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; Christina Sharpe, judge for the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize in the fiction category; and Allyson Holder.
The launch event is free and open to all, and copies of the chapbooks will be available for sale from Paper Based Bookshop.
The Writers Centre, 14 Alcazar Street, St. Clair, is the home of the Bocas Lit Fest, Paper Based Bookshop, and a branch of Full Bloom Coffee. A regular series of free events celebrating books and writers — including readings, discussions, launches, and workshops, for all ages — runs year-round. Visit bocaslitfest.com or @bocaslitfest on social media for more information.
