*this audio is an excerpt from audiobook With Love, Grief and Fury available now and where you like to listen to audiobooks…
Hello my lovelies,
Just a quick post today as I do my laundry — I am unpacking from a wild and wonder-filled weekend at the peaceful and inspirational Green Gathering and repacking for my return to the amazing Edinburgh International Book Festival.
I’ve been in a bubble of creativity and joy, peace and love at Green Gathering. I’ve been off-grid in a happy place of sharing hope and listening, talking and learning, a celebration of music and poetry, laughter and humanity.
Then when I charge my phone back up, I see a message from my mother ‘they are coming’ … my heart races to ring her and hear her voice and check she is ok. I know who she means, I know who they are, deep down I know it, as children of immigrants we know this. We gather. We ring around to each other. We check in. We protect. Intrinsically. Instinctively.
Ringing mum she says ‘they are coming’ and then that she is worried to leave her house and go to the shops. Then my mum describes witnessing racists yelling from their car at another black woman just for crossing the road. She tells me how it reminds her of the 1980s and Thatchers era. I tell her to be careful. She tells me to be careful. We tell each other we love each other. This is our reality. It is a horrible loop of fear, violence and death threats. We all deserve better than this.
Thank you to everyone for checking in with me and my family and friends and with each other. We are a beautiful community. Right now I think about all the times I have been shushed and corrected and told not to use the word fascist, the number of times I have apologised to make peace, to make people feel more comfortable, the number of times, over the decades, that it has been edited out of my work. Language is important and words are powerful, what we witness is fascism, racism, islamophobia and hate crime.
Love is the question and love is the answer.
United we are many. Together we must stop the hate. Be the lighthouse. You are the Hope, and Hope is a group project. You are the change. And time is now.
Thank you to everyone I met and talked and danced with at Green Gathering, you beautiful people, I love you! Thank you to everyone gathering, marching, sharing online and holding the line, you beautiful people, I love you!
OK. I’d better go finish packing and get ready for merry adventures in Edinburgh. Looking forward to my return to the brilliant Edinburgh Book festival with my new books. Really looking forward to seeing so many ace faces in real life again. I have poetry shows on August 10th, 11th and 13th! See you all there my loves!
✨Poetry for the People’ - 10-Aug 18:45 BST - EFI Spiegeltent - All-star line-up representing some of the most exciting writers of the form, it’s a night of celebration with: Caleb Femi, Salena Godden, Vanessa Kisuule, Iona Lee, Holly Pester, Michael Mullen and Sam Riviere. From Lee’s hypnotic new collection and Riviere’s surrealist adventures, to Godden’s showstopping delivery: this is poetry at its most exciting.
✨Salena Godden & Hannah Lavery: Poetry for the Future - 11-Aug 17:00 BST - EFI Spiegeltent - Edinburgh Makar Hannah Lavery opened our 2022 Festival with the poem ‘Edinburgh is a Story’. It features in Lavery’s new collection, Unwritten Women, alongside other poems inspired by the city. Beloved author Salena Godden also returns with a new collection of powerful poetry, With Love, Grief and Fury. In conversation with Chitra Ramaswamy.
✨ Salena Godden Streetreads - 13-Aug 13:00 BST - Streetreads Library
Poetry. Books. Gigs.
Out now: With Love, Grief and Fury
Out now: Springfield Road
Out now: Pessimism is for Lightweights
Out now: Mrs Death Misses Death
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/salenagodden
PS: 💜🎧 NEW episode — Roaring 20s Radio is a monthly Soho Radio show for the 2020s: roaring about art, culture, books, poetry, music and activism.
Co-presented by Salena Godden, Amah-Rose Abrams and Matt Abbott. The new episode for August will be broadcast this Saturday August 10th on Soho Radio and then available as a podcast.
I really love making this show with my friends Amah-Rose and Matt. You can catch up with podcasted episodes and tune in anytime, we are here to boost your art, books, poetry, music, activism and big conversations….
Our Anarchy