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Black Joy

For this episode, writers Patricia Cumper and Pauline Walker are joined by poet Rachel Long. She tells us about being inspired by Jean “Binta” Breeze, wanting to write poems that sound and feel real and why she set up Octavia Poetry Collective.

An image of the Black writer Rachel Long. She has chin length black hair and is wearing a sleeveless black pleated black top with a high neck.

Rachel Long is the leader of Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour. Since 2015 she has been Assistant Tutor to Jacob Sam-La Rose on the Barbican Young Poets programme. She began writing poetry after attending a workshop with Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, a transformative experience she describes as ‘radically intimate, and yet simultaneously expansive. I’ve been writing poems since I left that room.’

I’m going to continue to try to find ways to support and build and create communities, particularly for - for Black British poets, particularly for women.  

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