'A Blood Condition is one of the most arresting and beautiful set of poems of this or any year' Guardian, Books of the Year 2021
_SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA POETRY AWARD_
_SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE_
_SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION_
_LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 JHALAK PRIZE_
The moving, expansive, and dazzling second collection from award-winning poet Kayo Chingonyi
Kayo Chingonyi's remarkable second collection follows the course of a 'blood condition' as it finds its way to deeply personal grounds. From the banks of the Zambezi river to London and Leeds, these poems speak to how distance and time, nations and history, can collapse within a body.
With astonishing lyricism and musicality, this is a story of multiple inheritances -- of grief and survival, renewal and the painful process of letting go -- and a hymn to the people and places that run in our blood.
'A thing of beauty. It's a pleasure to read such a sure and strident second outing from one of our most celebrated young poets' Diana Evans
'An elegantly spare, cathartic and poignant but never indulgent collection that invites repeated reading' Telegraph
'The musicality and the hard reason is just so fresh, you feel altered by it' Andrew O'Hagan
_SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA POETRY AWARD_
_SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE_
_SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION_
_LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 JHALAK PRIZE_
The moving, expansive, and dazzling second collection from award-winning poet Kayo Chingonyi
Kayo Chingonyi's remarkable second collection follows the course of a 'blood condition' as it finds its way to deeply personal grounds. From the banks of the Zambezi river to London and Leeds, these poems speak to how distance and time, nations and history, can collapse within a body.
With astonishing lyricism and musicality, this is a story of multiple inheritances -- of grief and survival, renewal and the painful process of letting go -- and a hymn to the people and places that run in our blood.
'A thing of beauty. It's a pleasure to read such a sure and strident second outing from one of our most celebrated young poets' Diana Evans
'An elegantly spare, cathartic and poignant but never indulgent collection that invites repeated reading' Telegraph
'The musicality and the hard reason is just so fresh, you feel altered by it' Andrew O'Hagan
Chingonyi's poetic voice finds its full-throated maturity... Deep introspection becomes the vulnerable and brave heart of the book, rendered into jewel-like poems in "Origin Myth"... An elegantly spare, cathartic and poignant but never indulgent collection that invites repeated reading Dzifa Benson Telegraph