Poets of colour incubator
The Poets of Colour Incubator’s selection panel chose five of the shortlisted poets to be part of an Incubator Collective.
Meet the Incubator Collective Poets
The Poets of Colour Incubator’s selection panel chose five of the shortlisted poets to be part of an Incubator Collective. They will receive career signposting, professional guidance and space to build a community of practice.
The Incubator Collective poets are Nasima Begum (aka Nasima Bee), Chloe Elliott, Ruby-Ann Patterson, Yorusa and Elkanah Wilder.
Nasima Begum (aka Nasima Bee) is a performance poet, producer, actor and creative practitioner. She’s a trustee for Manchester’s Young Identity, (youngidentity.org) a collective of poets, dancers and musicians. Nasima is also a newly appointed patron for Contact Theatre in Manchester. She uses art as a means of activism and her work is an exploration of the everyday through a personal lens that connects to its audience. Nasima writes about loss, the feminine and spirituality, champions community and is the former coordinator of Manchester based CIO Ananna - MBWO, (mbwo.org.uk) which supports marginalised women through activities, volunteering opportunities and local policy change.
Nasima’s most notable works include performances with the Manchester Literature Festival, British Council’s BritLitBerlin conference and BBC’s Contains Strong Language. She has taught poetry with young people nationally and internationally through various projects. Nasima was one of five Greater Manchester recipients of the Jerwood Creative Fellowship with Manchester International Festival 2019 in which she observed ANU Productions ‘The Anvil’ and was also commissioned to write and record poetry for an installation piece as part of this. Most recently she worked on an audio commission with New Creatives North entitled ‘Salt’ in 2021. This work is funded by BBC Arts and Arts Council England. Nasima has also released her first solo R & D in short film form titled ‘fatihah’, a poetic exploration of loss and losing as part of HOME’s Push Festival 2022. Nasima is currently researching and developing her first script exploring what it means to be a British Muslim Woman in the current political climate with the support of Factory International.
Chloe Elliott is a writer based in York. She is a winner of the 2022 New Poets Prize for her debut pamphlet Encyclopaedia, out now. In 2020, she won the Gold Creative Future Writers’ Award. Her writing features in Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, bath magg, berlin lit, Bedtime Stories for the End of the World, Magma, The North, Strix amongst others. Her micro-chapbook Dream Simulation is forthcoming with The Braag in Winter 2023. She currently works for Aesthetica and is the Creative Apprentice for Modern Poetry in Translation.
Ruby-Ann Patterson is a multidisciplinary artist and mother producing poetry, performance, theatre and sound. Their work investigates identity and the epistemologies of belonging - dissecting themes of memory, sexuality, motherhood, ritual, lineage and displacement. She views her work as joining all the intricate parts of her; producing hybrid ways of responding to the joys and challenges she has faced. Ruby-Ann has previously been commissioned by Jerwood Arts, DRIFT, Black Gold Arts and Mothers who Make, and is a long-standing youth practitioner working with young artists at The Whitworth and Contact Theatre. In all their work, Ruby-Ann delves deeply into her stories and generously offers up raw, provocative interpretations enriched with her distinctive and moving voice.
Yorusa is a poet and performer. Their multidisciplinary practices currently explore East African mysticism, reflecting on the collective community and consciousness. Through their experience in theatre, they often consider how to present this playfully and with mesmer; using the dance of folklore to bridge the gap of intellect and access.
Elkanah Wilder is a non-binary trans masculine poet-actor-thinker from Yorkshire. Delighting in speaking the unspoken, their work seeks to unearth and untangle the taboo. As a Black queer and disabled activist, they are preoccupied by what it means to care, to love and to desire while surviving multiple silent oppression/s. Recently they have been mulling over kink as a vehicle of desire, empowerment and reclamation for disabled people.
