Introduction to Arji and Maia

Transcript of audio introduction

Hello, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m alice hiller. I’m here to introduce the first of our ‘Voicing our Silences’ monthly creative spaces. We’re aiming to support poets writing to expand the possible. Our first workshop and performance will be led by Arji Maneulpillai and Maia Elsner around the idea of political poetry. Arji and Maia will speak together, and perform a selection of their political poems, before leading workshop exercises that will help you develop your own political poetry.

Arji Manuelpillai came to poetry through rap and freestyling. This summer he published his debut pamphlet, Mutton Rolls, with Outspoken. Arji’s poems are poignant, witty, and hard-hitting. With titles from ‘brown boys in Kavos’ and ‘raves aren’t places to cry’ to ‘after being called a paki’ and ‘because it’s in the Lonely Planet top five places to visit’ they politicise the personal. They chart what it is to grow up brown in Britain, of Sri Lankan heritage. Arji also celebrates the high summers of hedonism – which all of us look back towards with a degree of longing in these more restricted times.

Like Arji, Maia Elsner has a multiple heritage background, encompassing Mexico, and the Shoah. Her poems work between worlds, religions and languages. They ask where does any of us come from, and to whom do we belong, while interrogating migration and trauma. Maia’s wonderful work has been published in British, American and Canadian journals, including MAGMA, STAND, BRITTLE STAR, COLORADO REVIEW and THE MISSOURI REVIEW, and recently anthologised in UN NUEVO SOL: BRITISH LATINX WRITERS (flipped eye, 2019).

I’m going to hand over to Arji and Maia now, and will wish us all a really good ‘Voicing our Silences’ workshop.

The event was recorded live on zoom with captions, and includes performances by Arji and Maia, a conversation between them, and two writing exercises set by Arji to do in real time. Please have your writing materials available.

The video of our event is below.  Please turn on captions through Youtube if you need to.