Rising Voices Special Edition

RISING VOICES is a Bournemouth University and Arts University Bournemouth production, directed by Dr. Aanka Batta, with Brad Gyori as lead researcher. Rising Voices is a poetry showcase of Dorset based writers of colour from across the spectrum of migration and immigration: asylum seekers, immigrants, second and third generation people of colour , and mixed heritage people of colour. The writers have developed their work through a series of workshops on decoloniality, covering topics such as racialized trauma, performing within coloniality and world literatures and languages.

While diversity representation in the arts in our area has been growing, the initiatives are almost never diversity-led. Rising Voices is a diversity-led initiative, with Aanka as director, who herself is an immigrant. The initiative is designed to increase visibility for writers of colour, poetic forms from other languages, and collective awareness building on matters of racial politics. Since its launch in Spring 2023, Rising Voices has already been booked by the Wilkswood Reggae Festival, Hope FM radio and received mention by the BBC Solent Radio and by Bournemouth Writing Festival.

In this special edition, Rising Voices brings an opportunity for Boscombe to hear poetry from local writers of colour, and engage them in a Q & A on their lived experience.

Come talk all things migration- in Hindi, Arabic, Urdu!

Please book a free ticket. 

Listen to some members of the Rising Voices here on Hope FM.

Image credit – Aanka Batta