Poet in the City Presents: Virgil’s Aeneid
Lessons on Fleeing, Hope and Resilience
Download the digital event programme for free here
The plight of refugees is not a new phenomenon, yet global crises still persist. Join us for an evening of poetry and discussion considering the lessons of Virgil’s Aeneid in the context of contemporary refugee emergencies.
Virgil’s legendary Aeneid is an epic Latin masterpiece. It tells the tale of Aeneas who flees from Troy, and forges his way across the Mediterranean in search of sanctuary, challenging assimilation and settlement in Italy. When faced with hostile rejection in the story, Virgil documents the bitterness, resentment and conflict that ultimately bred.
Join us in this event where we will share stories of the journeys made by refugees throughout the ages. We will shine a light on current grassroots support initiatives that have formed within communities in the face of hostile and dehumanising anti-immigration policies, and consider lessons for the future.
Performers confirmed are poet Nick Makoha who has written extensively on migration, poet Laila Sumpton who co-founded the refugee and migrants poetry group ‘Bards Without Borders’, and Edith Hall, British scholar of Classics. Amineh Abou Kerech, winner of the 2017 Betjeman Poetry Prize for “Lament for Syria”, will join us to perform her work. Excerpts of the Aeneid will be performed by Laura Hanna.
You may also be interested in our Forugh Farrokhzad: The Rebel Poet of 1960s Iran event, on Monday 28 June at Wilton’s Music Hall.
Performer Biographies
Nick Makoha
The Founder of Obsidian, Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet and playwright and based in London. His debut Kingdom of Gravity was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize and nominated by The Guardian as one of the best books of 2017. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow and Complete Works Alumni. He won the 2015 Brunel prize and 2016 Derricotte & Eady Prize for his pamphlet Resurrection Man. He was the 2019 Writer-in-Residence for The Wordsworth Trust and Wasafiri. His play The Dark was directed by JMK award-winner Roy Alexander and shortlisted for the 2019 Alfred Fagon Award. He has been involved in TV marketing campaigns for Voices Nationwide: Celebrating Fatherhood and the Gillette, Being A Man digital campaign for The Southbank Centre. His poems appeared in The New York Times, Poetry Review, Rialto, Poetry London, Triquarterly Review, Boston Review, Callaloo, and Wasafiri.
Nick Makoha will be performing his own poetry at the event, and reflecting on the migrant experience.
Laura Hanna
Laura’s theatre credits include: Living Newspaper Edition 5 & A History of Water in the Middle East (Royal Court), Signal Fires (Fuel Theatre); KaraOkay & Give a Man a Bible (Bunker Theatre); Rest Upon the Wind (Oman tour); The Sweethearts, Perchance to Dream (Finborough); A Bright Room Called Day (Southwark); Foreplay (King’s Head); Still Life & Red Peppers (Old Red Lion); Lean (Tristan Bates); Beasts & Beauties (Hampstead).
Laura joins the event to bring to life excerpts of the Aeneid.
Laila Sumpton
Laila Sumpton is a poet, educator and performer working with schools, museums, galleries and hospitals on poetry projects for learners of all ages. She co-founded the refugee and migrants poetry group ‘Bards Without Borders’ who toured UK venues and is currently leading the Jesuit Refugee Services’ ‘Open Writing Space’ for destitute asylum seekers. Laila works regularly with refugee arts organisation Counterpoints Arts to help communities explore exile and identity through poetry and has undertaken commissions for the Tate Modern on this theme. She is co-creating and producing a play called ‘I am Leah’ inspired by testimonies from the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda with 100 Stories and their scratch performance is on June 13th at the Peopleing the Palace festival. She was recently the Keats House Poet in residence where she investigated the colonial history of collections for her project ‘Poetry Versus Colonialism.’ Laila’s collection ‘The Stampless’ is due to be published with Arachne Press next year.
Edith Hall
Edith is Professor in the Classics Department at King’s College London. Her specialism is ancient Greek literature, but she enjoys putting the pleasure as well as the rigour into all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman history, society, and thought. Edith has now published thirty books, broadcasts frequently on radio and television, works as consultant with professional theatres, lectures all over the world, and publishes widely in academic and mainstream journals and newspapers. Edith has held posts at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, Reading and Royal Holloway, and visiting positions at Notre Dame, Swarthmore, Northwestern, Leiden, and Erfurt.
Amineh Abou Kerech
Amineh Abou Kerech is a poet. She left Syria when was 8 years old, and has not returned since. She travelled to Egypt and lived there for around 4 and a half years, it was very difficult at the beginning because she grew up in a different society away from her other family. She then moved to the UK when she was 12 years old. She started to write poems at school because she had no one to talk to due to the new language and life. So, at the age of 13, she won the Betjeman poetry prize in 2017 with ‘Lament for Syria’.
