England's Green

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Aliyah Begumis a nineteen-year-old poet and performer, who was Birmingham’s Young Poet Laureate between 2018-2020. She is a commended Foyle Young Poet and her work has been featured on Young Poets Network, in anthologies and on the radio. She has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the BBC, and is currently studying English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. Zaffar Kunial possesses that rare quality of negative capability which Keats first identified in Shakespeare (a guiding spirit in this, Kunial’s first collection); the poems hold us among mysteries and doubts, without pronouncing or attempting to resolve. Their beauty lies in their indecisiveness – their quiet refusal to settle matters or hold to a single view.' (Rebecca Watts, Times Literary Supplement) The poetry shortlist was made up of Fiona Benson’s Ephemeron, Zaffar Kunial’s England’s Green, Yomi Sode’s Manorism and Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa’s Cane, Corn & Gully, alongside Adukwei Bulley’s Quiet. What’s more English than a place name like ‘Bascote Heath, Little Itchington’ where we meet Kunial “armed with my mother’s maiden name” picturing the humanity behind the names. There’s an echo of Larkin’s “long uneven lines” as Kunial imagines the glorious dead “moving in one long continuous / column, four abreast …” which would stretch from Whitehall to Durham. Immediately he imagines the column in the pre-partition India, where his father was born into a Muslim family. Later in the book we see a wartime photo of his English grandfather next to “one of two brown” fellow airmen. This is the same grandfather

Although this poem describes events in 1616 and 1066, the closing line: “Shapes. Spreading from the future on the beach.” speaks as much of those who come to Britain today for safety and shelter as it does of conquest or invasive species. Zaffar Kunial lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, and was born in Birmingham. His debut collection, Us , was shortlisted for a number of prizes. He was a 2022 recipient of the Yale University Windham-Campbell Prize. England’s Green is his second book; it was also shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Mukisa Verrallis a Modern Languages student and Foyle Young Poet based in Manchester. His favourite word is currently scopfrom Old English, meaning shaper, creator, poet. Words like ‘motherland’, ‘fatherland’ and ‘Eng(er)land’ are too often brandished, drawn as weapons against some feared, or hated, other. Kunial disarms these words, polishes them, and sets them with the skill of a jeweller Scary Monsters was joined on the fiction shortlist by NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, Sheila Heti’s Pure Colour, Daisy Hildyard’s Emergency and Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea.

Tender and true, complex and profound, Quiet is a beautiful balancing act of a book – a debut that brings Adukwei Bulley fully formed, starting something,” they added. Young Critics Davina Bacon and SZ Shao shares their experiences of the programme, and what they have been up to since, in the new videos below. You might also find the two features published on Young Poets Network as part of the 2022 Scheme helpful: How To Write A Poetry Review and 15 Top Tips From Leading Critics. Staring at an isolated word, or repeating it aloud, over and over, is a brain-game that can disrupt the cosiest family of letters, and sometimes suggest curious re-alliances. In this week’s poem, from Zaffar Kunial’s second collection, England’s Green, the word chosen for such an adventure is “ foxgloves”. Kunial begins by gently imagining the pleasure of hiding in the middle of his word, where “the xgl is hard to say”. It certainly is: I practised it when no one was listening, and made a sound part kiss, part hiss and part gulp. It sounded like a protest against “the England of its harbouring word”. Young Poets Network is a hugely important and innovative online meeting point for any young person with an interest in poetry – to share, to experiment and to expand their knowledge. It attracts large numbers of lively minded readers and writers with its features, challenges, competitions and resources, and we look forward to seeing and hearing how they respond to the T. S. Eliot Prize 2022 shortlist. We are very glad to be extending reviewing culture and opportunities through the Young Critics Scheme.” A second collection from one of the most distinctive and original voices to have emerged in recent years, Zaffar Kunial.Noah Jacobis an Arab-British poet and performer. She is an editor and columnist for Zindabad Zine and alum of The Writing Room and the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, having placed second in the Roundhouse Poetry Slam 2021. She has been featured in SLAMbassadors, Kalopsia Lit, Shubbak Festival and Camden Festival.