In this workshop, we’ll explore Harmony Holiday’s latest collection as well as Nathanial Mackey, Christina Sharpe and Achille Mbembe.

In a time of widespread censorship and distortion, how can poetry cut through the silence that lingers in the wake of catastrophe? ‘Survival was so funny and incantatory’, writes Harmony Holiday in MAAFA, a rousing epic poem that examines the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and ‘undoes the erasure of Black femininity’.
In this generative workshop, we’ll explore the ideas in Holiday’s latest collection: its invocations of musical theory, American culture, Black radical thought and African mythology to forge a freedom song and recall the words lost to history. The session will also feature responses to work by Nathaniel Mackey, Christina Sharpe and Achille Mbembe, and opportunities for writing and feedback.

Isabelle Baafi is the author of Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber/Wesleyan University Press, 2025), which won the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her work has been published in Granta, the TLS, The Poetry Review, Callaloo, The London Magazine and elsewhere. She edits at Poetry London and Magma.

Established in 2018, the87press is an Asian, LGBTQIA+, and neurodiverse led publishing collective and events curator in South London. We prioritize modernism, anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and environmentalism in our print publications of poetry, fiction, and essays. Additionally, we offer educational and creative workshops, industry leading live events, and regular commissioned work with online journal of culture theHythe. Committed to equity, all authors receive fair contracts regardless of their background. As part of Arts Council England's National Portfolio, we contribute to the Let's Create project and look forward to fostering inclusive learning spaces as the only NPO in the London Borough of Sutton.