The launch of Shirley May’s first book of poetry, ‘She Wrote Her Own Eulogy’, published by Wrecking Ball Press. Shirley will be sharing some of the poems from her book and discussing it with the audience. Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase.
Shirley is the director of Young Identity writing collective, which primarily works with 13-25 year olds. Her own work has been published in a number of anthologies, and she has performed not only locally in the North West but also nationally and internationally, appearing at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York and the Calabash writing festival in Jamaica. ‘She Wrote Her Own Eulogy’ is largely inspired by her family’s history and is a deeply emotional and often lyrical collection.
“Shirley May is a world builder. This truth is evident in the work she does as a pillar of Manchester’s poetry and spoken word community, but just as much here, in her own writing. This is tangible work, lending body and blood to a Black-British experience, an exploration of a Jamaican heritage complete in all its fierceness, sensuality, tribulation and transcendence.”
Jacob Sam-La Rose, writer
“Blazing with emotion, challenging all the senses, this life – affirming collection demands to be read . Charting a journey from Jamaica , these beautifully crafted poems offer a fresh, detailed insight into the experience of migration .
Sue Roberts, senior editor at the verb
“The lines of Shirley’s poems are more continental than English: the verse and language is allowed to flourish, to flow and grow as it needs. There is an Africanity here too, in the verse, in its summonings, invocations, channelings; the poet is at home in the Jamaican folklore of rolling-calf as in the West African praise song.”
Peter Kalu, Cultureword
“The stories sing, they move you to tears, yet are inspiring: seeds of truth being planted in one generation’s ears to pass on to the next”
Peter Kalu, Cultureword
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