Lime Time
Mon 3 Feb 2020
In 2019, when the media raved about how many more people were buying poetry books after years of decline, several sources neglected to mention the one area of poetry where audiences have been growing steadily since the turn of the century – live spoken word poetry. Many of the precursors of this art form as entertainment were Caribbean poets, carrying influences from calypso and dub, and as adept on paper as they were on stage. Many of them went on to win major prizes. This year we honour these poets in a one-off lime, bringing together major prize winners Valerie Bloom, John Agard and Grace Nichols – as well as recent T.S. Eliot Prize winner (for his collection A Portable Paradise) Roger Robinson
