”The poem ‘How To Pronounce Peckham’ was the first poem in the collection that was written. It was in late 2016 a long while before the conception of the collection. This poem was evidence of a planted seed in my mind, a small light of an endeavour to articulate the lives and times of my community of North Peckham and explore how architecture and social policies influence the lives of many working-class communities like my own.
Caleb FemiPoet
His Story
Caleb was London’s first Young People’s Laureate. He is a filmmaker and photographer as well as a poet, and his own photos – of the places and faces of the North Peckham Estate, where Femi’s imagination finds its jumping-off point – are scattered throughout the pages of Poor.
Sunday night’s ceremony also saw Caleb Femi win the £5,000 prize for best first collection for Poor, an exploration of life on a Peckham estate which also features photographs taken by the poet, and a poem dedicated to the murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor, whom Femi knew.
