We are very delighted to announce the launch of Amani Saeed‘s invigorating debut collection SPLIT.  Amani Saeed is a London-born American-British-Indian-Middle-Eastern-etc. spoken word artist. She is a member of the poetry collective The Yoniverse and has worked with the Roundhouse, the BBC and the Huffington Post, among others. Amani’s work brings the big issues to your kitchen table. It explores the crisis cultivated by living between sometimes (but not always) contradictory cultures, blurring the line between masjid and miniskirt. Amani’s poetry has been described as ‘electric’, ‘strident’, and ‘brave’.

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 Interior illustrations by Sophie Leary

‘Amani Saeed has grown a new tongue to replace that which was surgically removed by institutional racism, loss and womanhood. That tongue will become a voice for the lost, the dispossessed and the furious dreamers of a displaced generation. Striking, strong and loud.’ – Joelle Taylor

‘Amani Saeed examines that liminal space between being feminist and Muslim, Muslim and American, British and Indian, and the space between racism and privilege. She is not making this space weak, slippery or infirm, but instead makes it as strong as a plinth from which to call out bullshit on both sides. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do as poets, call out bullshit when we see it whatever side it’s on? A brave and essential debut.’ – Roger Robinson

‘Amani’s work gives her reader a home, a place to rest and seek comfort. In her work you can find beauty in even the ugliest of places; she deftly demonstrates that there are no real binaries and her work reflects vividly how we live in a world that is as complex, painful and as wonderful as her imagination.’ – Shagufta Igbal

 

SPLIT is now available from our web store