This special edition of Hummingbirds celebrates the publication of Indenture Aesthetics by Jordache A. Ellapen.

Indenture Aesthetics examines the visual and performance art practices of feminist, queer, femme, and gender-nonconforming Afro-Indian and South African black artists to understand the paradoxes of freedom in contemporary South Africa. Tracing the afterlife of apartheid-era racial categories and revisiting Bantu Stephen Biko’s Black Consciousness, Ellapen theorizes South African blackness through the Indian Ocean World, showing how the development of an Afro-Indian identity after generations of indentured labor and segregation troubles persistent racial hierarchies.

Join the87press for Mushaira, an evening of poetry, music, and community. Rooted in the South Asian tradition of shared verse and gathering, Mushaira is a live literature series celebrating unique and emerging poetic voices.

Inspired by Palestinian poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s third collection of the same title, this workshop explores how our writing is shaped by the ongoing experience and witnessing of violence and displacement. Participants will draw from Khalaf Tuffaha’s skilful blurring of local and distant, present and past, to experiment with writing that speaks to our time, as well as reaching for a more possible future beyond it.

6 - 8pm GMT, 1 - 3pm EST, 10 - 12 PST

Join us for a night of Poetry readings hosted by Jessica Widner. We're very happy to welcome Emily Lee Luan, Megan Pinto and Annie Wenstrup to Glasgow for this event which is organised by one of MF Books fave publishers. the87press is a radical publishing collective and home for countercultural, hybrid, and experimental works of poetry, prose, and non-fiction from racialised, neurodivergent, queer, and working class authors.

We are thrilled to be hosting an evening of poetry with the87press's Emily Lee Luan, Megan Pinto and Annie Wenstrup. We will also be joined by Edinburgh-based poet Alycia Pirmohamed.

Join us for a showcase of the wonderful poetry publisher the87press, with readings by poets Megan Pinto, Emily Lee Luan and Mantra Mukim, and support from poet and artist Ralph Hoyte.

Join us for the London book launch of Something about Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha at London Review Bookshop.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha will be reading from her work and discussing it with writer, bookseller and film curator So Mayer, whose most recent book is Bad Language.

Join the87press for Mushaira, an evening of poetry, music, food, and community. Celebrating five new poetry collections.

With readings by Emily Lee Luan and Megan Pinto (alongside bassist Seth Barden), Whiting Award recipient Annie Wenstrup, Palestinian poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Indian modernist Mantra Mukim. Joined by Marxist poet Clint Burnham.

Join us for the Edinburgh launch of Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’s poetry collection Something About Living featuring a live reading from the poet, a conversation with Zain Rishi, and an audience Q & A. This event is brought to you in collaboration between the87press and Palestine Museum Scotland.

Strathclyde ECW and the87press are honoured to introduce Something About Living to the UK. Join us for an evening of conversation and poetry with poet, essayist, and translator Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and Dr Jessica Widner, lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Strathclyde.

This special edition of Hummingbirds celebrates the opening of Roundtable Books' new space in the Granville Arcade, Brixton. With readings from Sabeen Chaudhry, Karenjit Sandhu, James Goodwin, and dove, Christine Kirubi.

Join the87press for Mushaira, an evening of poetry, performance, music, food, and community. This edition celebrates the publication of two novels—Tetra Nova by Sophia Terazawa and Indian Winter by Kazim Ali. Featuring readings from Sophia Terazawa, Kazim Ali (virtual), Samuel Fisher, Sunny Singh, and Clare Pollard. Music by DJ Will René and food by Chef Yogi.

This workshop with Victoria Adukwei Bulley explores the ways that the female or feminine body is positioned in contexts of the divine, religious, and the spiritual through the poems of Sarah Ghazal Ali’s critically acclaimed debut, Theophanies.

6 - 8pm GMT, 1 - 3pm EST, 10 - 12 PST

Join for the Bristol launch of Gabrielle Bates’ debut poetry collection Judas Goat. With support from author Emma Gomis.

Join for the Scottish launch of Gabrielle Bates' debut poetry collection, Judas Goat. The conversation will be chaired by Jessica Widner.

Join the87press for a special Mushaira featuring the launches of Autobiography of a Performance by Blue Pieta/Bhanu Kapil, with a performance featuring vocalist/musician Kath Gifford, Judas Goat by Gabrielle Bates, and The Nightmare Sequence by Omar Sakr, illustrated by Safdar Ahmed (virtual reading). The evening will also feature guest readings from poets Hannah Copley and Isabelle Baafi.

Join the87press for a very special Hummingbirds event featuring Alia Al Ghussain and Rayya El Zein to celebrate the launch of Filling the Head: Listening to Rap in Arabic (Indiana University Press, 2025) at Housmans Bookshop in Kings Cross.

How do we write in relation to our histories – our inheritances? And how do we write in relation to one another in the ever-changing contexts of our world(s)? In this workshop, we will read poetry that explores these entanglements, thinking about collectivity, shifting personal and political narratives, and how we consciously or unconsciously write toward/to another. This workshop will incorporate hybrid, cross-genre works; docu-poetics; and poetry with intertextual elements. In the session, there will be time for close reading, discussion, and writing exercises. The title of this workshop was inspired by Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation and Susan Briante’s Defacing the Monument.

We’ll be joined by four phenomenal poets: Sarah Ghazal Ali, Saba Keramati, Susan Nguyen, and Rushika Wick. DJs Jimmy Two Shoes and Dr Aditi will carry us into the night with sweet tunes, while Chef Yogi sells delicious Sri Lankan food throughout the evening.

How do we write in relation to our histories – our inheritances? And how do we write in relation to one another in the ever-changing contexts of our world(s)? In this workshop, we will read poetry that explores these entanglements, thinking about collectivity, shifting personal and political narratives, and how we consciously or unconsciously write toward/to another. This workshop will incorporate hybrid, cross-genre works; docu-poetics; and poetry with intertextual elements. In the session, there will be time for close reading, discussion, and writing exercises. The title of this workshop was inspired by Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation and Susan Briante’s Defacing the Monument.

“Somewhere beneath this poem,” writes Victoria Adukwei Bulley, “is the one you sat down to write.” What lives in the space between said and unsaid? How do our inherited narratives and embodied truths unfold in many kinds of quiet on the page?

In this workshop, we will look at poems from Bulley’s transformative debut collection Quiet to think about quiet as technique, quiet as form, and quiet as the body’s logbook. The session will include close reading, discussion, and writing exercises.

Join us for an unforgettable evening of poetry, performance, and music, curated by the87press. This February, we’re celebrating three exciting titles coming up later in the year: Recupera by Emma Gomis, gestalt by Karenjit Sandhu, and MAAFA by Harmony Holiday.