Join us as we celebrate an evening of poetry & musical styling, launching SELF-PORTRAIT AS OTHELLO, the latest book by Leeds-Jamaican poet Jason Allen-Paisant, & featuring guest poets Khadijah Ibrahiim & Kayo Chingonyi. Music by DJ Sensation.

This event is produced by Renaissance One and supported by The Collective Inc and Carcanet Press.

In this memoir in poems, Allen-Paisant steps into the body of Othello, refracting his travels across Europe through this figure. The result is a work about style and performance in myriad ways. For the speaker, the sweet spot often lies where it feels like a little bit of confusion, of displacement, even if the body language is one of bravado and dominance.

In her review for The Guardian, Fiona Sampson writes that, “Allen-Paisant makes the historical impasse [of Shakespeare’s Othello] an occasion for deep, generous interrogation of masculinity, and a linked elevation of the maternal that is at the heart of so many Caribbean and other families”, adding that “Self-Portrait As Othello celebrates representation, understanding and speech as acts of glorious resistance.”