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 Karenjit Sandhu and special guests to celebrate the Panchayat Collection and the launch of gestalt at Tate Britain. Sandhu will perform from gestalt, accompanied by a soundscape composed by Christopher Sarantis. Guest poets Azad Ashim Sharma, Bhanu Kapil, Iain Morrison and Redell Olsen

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.

Where do we end and where does the world begin? How are our beings marked and complicated by their inherited histories? In this workshop inspired by poems from Alycia Pirmohamed’s collection How To Split Water, participants will experiment with writing that seeks to dissolve the borders between self and other, land and body, matter and spirit, reaching across forms towards a more numinous, transcendent kinship.

We will welcome Waithera Sebatindira and Azad Ashim Sharma who will read from their recent works, Through an Addict's Looking Glass (Hajar Press, 2023) and Boiled Owls (Out Spoken Press, 2024). Both these texts work their way through the throes and trials of addiction and contend with the promises of recovery.

Welcome back to MUSHAIRA, an evening of poetry, performance, and music curated by the87press. Join us this November for an exciting lineup celebrating the launch of four new titles: The Pharmacy by Kat Sinclair, OSSIA by Jimin Seo, Son of Sin by Omar Sakr, and The Voice of Sheila Chandra by Kazim Ali. We’re thrilled that all four authors are able to join us in London to read from their latest works! Each author will read for 20 minutes.

In this workshop, we will explore archival poetics and consider archives – and archival spaces – as both theme and source. What are the politics that underlie what is deemed important enough for ‘permanent’ preservation? What materials might purposely evade personal and public archives? We will engage with the practice of docupoetry, read material related to archival reclamation and resistance, and consider how our own mediums and writing processes simultaneously memorialise and erase. The session will include close reading, discussion, and writing exercises. A list of pre-reading materials including poetry and longer works will be shared with participants in advance. Note: the title of this session borrows from works by Bhanu Kapil and Sarah Howe.

What is refusal? What terms of the world might refusal seek to reject, and what does it demand of us as writers and readers? Spending time with poems from Fady Joudah’s recent collection […] (Out-Spoken Press, 2024) alongside Lola Olufemi’s text 'Notes on Refusal', participants of this workshop will experiment with techniques including acts of (un)naming, (re)definition, blackout and redaction as a means of understanding how refusal works as a poetics on the page, as well as how such writing calls beyond itself towards social action.

Join us on October 5th at Cafe OTO to celebrate the launch of The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989 and WILDPLASSEN!

Hummingbirds 3.0 brings together two writers from the Punjabi diaspora, Karenjit Sandhu and Kiran Bath, reading and in conversation.

When do we sense a departure or an arrival? In this workshop, we will spend time thinking about thresholds, boundaries, and borders.