“I’m a poet because I want to go away, to be a fugitive, to slide away from the world that’s proposed.”
Jason Allen-Paisant is a poet, scholar and writer.
On Blackness as an atmospheric condition
The physical body of colour in a world built of whiteness that is oblivious to itself
On knowing the names of things
How prescriptive language and lack of time is weaponised to waste our lives
Jason Allen-Paisant in conversation with John Siddique
Jason Allen-Paisant reflects on the move from poetry into prose, in particular with his new memoir, The Possibility of Tenderness.
Biography
Jason Allen-Paisant is a Jamaican writer and multi-award-winning poet. He is the author of two critically acclaimed books of poetry, ‘Thinking with Trees’ and ‘Self-Portrait as Othello’, which won the UK’s two most prestigious poetry awards for 2023 – the Forward Prize and T. S. Eliot Prize respectively.
He is also a Professor of Critical Theory and Creative Writing at the University of Manchester and Associate Editor of the literary journal Callaloo. He has recently been made a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature. Jason lives in Leeds with his partner and two children.
