CSL poets Kim Moore, John Siddique, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan and Kirsty Taylor discuss and share their work.

Kim Moore

Kim Moore’s pamphlet If We Could Speak Like Wolveswas a winner in the 2011 Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition. Her first collection The Art of Falling(Seren 2015) won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Her second collection All The Men I Never Married(Seren, 2021) won the 2022 Forward Prize for Best Collection. Her first non-fiction book What The Trumpet Taught Mewas published by Smith/Doorstop in May 2022. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University andthe Deputy Programme Leader for the MA/MFA in Creative Writing. A hybrid book of lyric essays and poetry Are You Judging Me Yet? Poetry and Everyday Sexism was published by Seren in March 2023.

John Siddique

John Siddique is an author and sacred teacher. He has written nine books of poetry and non-fiction, including the recent ‘Signposts of The Spiritual Journey’and ‘SO’. John is also the Project Co-ordinator for the Royal Literary Fund & WritersMosaicin The North of England. He has been featured in Time, The Guardian, Granta, The Bookseller,CNN and the BBC,and his meditations and teachings have connected with millions of people globally, offering deep insight into the nature of life and self-discovery. He has served as Canterbury Laureate and British Council Poet-in-Residence at CSU-Los Angeles. He is also an Honorary Writing Fellow at Leicester University.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a poet, writer, playwright and educator whose work confronts racism, empire and Islamophobia, while imagining liberatory futures rooted in faith and justice. Her poetry and prose challenge dominant narratives and invite collective resistance and reimagining.

She is the author of Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia(Pluto Press, 2022), described as “brave” and “necessary,” and Seeing for Ourselves(Hajar Press, 2023), a collection of essays, memoir and poetry exploring visibility, representation and the gaze. Her debut poetry collection, Postcolonial Banter(2019), established her as “one of Britain’s most promising young voices” (Priyamvada Gopal).

Her viral poem This is Not a Humanising Poem has been viewed over two million times and remains a landmark in contemporary spoken word. Her debut play Peanut Butter and Blueberriespremiered at the Kiln Theatre in 2024. Suhaiymah also co-founded The Nejma Collective, supporting abolitionist solidarity with Muslims in prison.

Kirsty Taylor

Kirsty Taylor is a writer and educator inspired by her beloved hometown Bradford. She is passionate about story telling through poetry and has performed all over the country telling tales about people, class and the realities of Broken Britain. Kirsty was a BBC Verb New Voice in 2017 and was awarded the Apples and Snakes & Jerwood Arts Poetry in Performance award in 2020. She is the creator of the imitable Front Room Poetry, which takes nanna style living rooms and world class poets to unusual settings suchas car parks and housing estates.

In 2022 Kirsty’s first full length play Cashy C’s: The Musical, a unique rap and bassline show about poverty and austerity sold out all it’s shows in under twenty four hours, received five star reviews and was voted inThe Guardian Readers favourite stage shows of 2022. In January 2024 she was awarded the Kay Mellor Fellowship and is pursuing her writing with support from Rollem Productions and Leeds Play House, developing an idea for screen and theatre about mothers who have had their children removed.

Kirsty opened Bradford’s City of Culture year in January performing her words to 20,000 across the weekend in City Park.