The first time I met Emily Berry I beckoned to her from a pub in Cambridge moments before she was due to read from her book, Dear Boy (Faber, 2013). With an expression on her face that I would now recognize as bemused, she kindly sat with me and engaged in conversation. I was so frightened of her br...

Hoa Nguyen’s voice is so soothing, so peaceful, so pretty, that when it throws me off balance it’s nerve-wracking and exciting. The colour, movement and sturdiness of her words – both in conversation and on paper in her latest collection, the Griffin Poetry Prize-nominated Violet Energy Ingots – pla...

Harmony Holiday does not stand on her mark. She is a dancer, choreographer and poet, and while she craves the discipline of these artistic kingdoms, she is not so much put off by their most archaic structures as indifferent to them. As the daughter of celebrated musician Jimmy Holiday, she does hold...