Multilingual City Poets at Manchester Poetry Library
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
It’s time for the inaugural set of Multilingual City Poets to pass on their crowns and sashes to the incoming cohort of talented creatives appointed by Manchester City of Literature.
Charlotte Shevchenko Knight and Nóra Blascsók will be in post for a year, working on commissions from the UNESCO City of Literature’s local and international networks to produce a series of original works. Much like conventional Poet Laureate designations, the Multilingual City Poets act as ambassadors for Manchester’s residents, communities and literature organisations, showing the dedication to the importance of literature at a civic level.
Their tenure will be marked with a celebratory multilingual event at Manchester Poetry Library on 17 February in the run-up to International Mother Language Day 2025 on 21 February. The evening will feature readings and screenings of poetry films created by the Manchester City Poets 2022-2025, Anjum Malik, Ali Al-Jamri and Jova Bagioli Reyes, and Charlotte and Nora will facilitate a conversation together with Anjum, Ali and Jova, exploring themes of multilingual writing, language, translation and poetry. Commissioned poems so far have responded to public events, projects and community outreach programmes coordinated by Manchester City of Literature including Festival of Libraries, Manchester Day and World Poetry Day. Each poet translates the other poets’ writing, so all output is available in a variety of languages.
Charlotte Shevchenko Knight is a York-based writer of both British and Ukrainian heritage, and a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University. She was a winner of the New Poets Prize in 2022 with her debut pamphlet, Ways of Healing. Her debut collection, Food for the Dead, is published by Jonathan Cape. It won Best First Collection UK in the Laurel Prize 2024 and an Eric Gregory Award in 2023, and was shortlisted for the Forward Foundation’s 2024 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.
Nora Blascsok is a Hungarian poet based in Manchester. Her work has been published in a range of magazines and anthologies, including The Alchemy Spoon, Butcher’s Dog, bath magg, Acumen, Atrium and ‘Footprints: An anthology of new ecopoetry’, among others. Her debut pamphlet <body>of work</body> was published in June 2022 by Broken Sleep Books.
Anjum Malik is an established scriptwriter, poet, performer and senior lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has written several acclaimed original plays for BBC, ITV and theatre. Her first languages were Urdu, American English and Panjabi; born of Pakistani parents in Saudi Arabia; she was multilingual and international before she could walk.
Arabic poet, teacher and producer Ali Al-Jamri is a writer of prose and poetry, and is passionate about translation and its role within diasporic Arabic-language communities in the UK. Ali’s Between Two Islands project was funded by Arts Council England and brought poetry workshops to the UK’s Bahraini community.
Jova Bagioli Reyes is a queer, neurodiverse immigrant hailing from Colombia and Chile. As a poet and musician, they are heavily inspired by the long history of struggle of Abya Yala (so-called Latin America) and their work deals with themes of decolonisation, autonomy and liberation.
International Mother Language Day is an internationally recognised UNESCO designated day. As Manchester City of Literature leads the 53 UNESCO Cities of Literature for International Mother Language Day each year, the whole week will be celebrated with a programme of 20 events across libraries, museums and language centres.
