Langston Hughes: Dreams Deferred – Kayo Chingonyi
The epicentre of Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes’ rhythmic, urgent poetry empowered a generation of new writers, with an aftershock that still reverberates today. His work was full of music and dance, and described the Black American experience over decades. Characterised by narratives of empowerment and a belief in humanity, he celebrated Black identity in a unique and powerful way.
Kayo Chingonyi is a fellow of the Complete Works programme for diversity and quality in British Poetry and the author of two pamphlets, Some Bright Elegance (Salt, 2012) and The Colour of James Brown’s Scream (Akashic, 2016). His first full-length collection, Kumukanda, was published in June 2017 by Chatto & Windus and went on to win the Dylan Thomas Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award. Kayo has been invited to read from his work at venues and events across the UK and internationally. He was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and has completed residencies with Kingston University, Cove Park, First Story, The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and Royal Holloway University of London in partnership with Counterpoints Arts. He was Associate Poet at the Institute of Contemporary Arts from Autumn 2015 to Spring 2016, Anthony Burgess Fellow at Manchester University in 2018, and co-edited issue 62 of Magma Poetry and the Autumn 2016 edition of The Poetry Review. He is now poetry editor for The White Review. Kayo is also an emcee, producer, and DJ and regularly collaborates with musicians and composers both as a poet and a lyricist.
This interview was conducted on 1st March 2017 at Wilton’s Music Hall by Axel Kacoutié at Langston Hughes: Dreams Deferred, an event in collaboration with East London Dance and Kinetika Bloco.
