Join us for poetry and conversation focusing on the escalating tragedy of refugee deaths in the English Channel (La Manche).
The readings and conversation take place online on Saturday, 10 January 2026, from 6pm till 7.30pm (UK time).
REGISTRATION
To attend, book your ticket here.
ABOUT THE READINGS AND CONVERSATION
As part of the indaba, poets contributing to LA MANCHE: JOURNAL OF ENGLISH CHANNEL POETRY (CivicLeicester, forthcoming) will comment on what is happening in and around the English Channel, and read and discuss their work.
There will also be a Q&A and conversation with all present.
The indaba asks:
- What are the systemic, social, political, economic, contemporary, and historical factors leading to how human beings fleeing war, conflict and persecution are perishing in the cold waters of the Strait of Dover?
- Why is the English Channel the only route available to the people?
- How do we remember those who are dying? And,
- How do we confront the attitudes, ideologies, policies and beliefs that make these deaths permissible and the people unmournable?
Poets taking part include Philip Rösel Baker, Hongwei Bao, Syd Bolton, Safoora Cheriki, A C Clarke, Heather Falconer, Jennifer Fox, Paul Francis, Ilan Kelman, and Hastie Salih.
The conversation is hosted by Forced Migration and The Arts, and the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series
ABOUT THE POETS
Philip Rösel Baker is an Anglo-German poet living on the East Anglia coast. His mother married an English soldier at the end of WW2 and was one of the first “enemy” German nationals to be allowed into Britain in peacetime. He has won both the George Crabbe and the Shelley Memorial poetry prizes.
Hongwei Bao (he/him) is a Nottingham-based queer Chinese writer, translator and academic. He is the author of Dream of the Orchid Pavilion (Big White Shed, 2024), The Passion of the Rabbit God (Valley Press, 2024), Queering the Asian Diaspora (Sage, 2025) and and Self-Portrait as a Banana (Poetic Edge, 2025).
Syd Bolton is a Children’s Human Rights Lawyer (currently non-practising), former legal and policy officer including for Coram Children’s Legal Centre; The Children’s Legal Centre; Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture; Islington Law Centre, Wilford Monro Solicitors. He has spoken and delivered training on the rights of children, in particular, refugee, asylum seeking and migrant children, both nationally and internationally, and been an adviser to the Children’s Commissioner England.
Safoora Cheriki is a writer, poet, Iranian, based in France, and is a member of Atelier of Artiste in exile in Paris.
A C Clarke has published six collections and six pamphlets, two in collaboration. Her latest collection is Alive Among Dead Stars (Broken Sleep Books 2024). A third collaborative pamphlet with Maggie Rabatski and the late Sheila Templeton is due out from Seahorse Publications in December 2025. She lives in Glasgow.
Heather Falconer says, ‘My mother escaped the bombs that were falling on London in 1941 which were being dropped by the armed forces of a country which had been taken over by people with very similar attitudes to those in the UK now leading the attacks on people trying to escape similar horrors.’
Jennifer Fox is of Caribbean heritage, and is the author of Three Voices, a contemporary literary novel that deals with integration and interracial relationships. She has featured in the Sunday Times, and been the subject of a BBC documentary, and has written content for The Times and Telegraph.
Paul Francis is a retired teacher, living in Much Wenlock, who’s active in the West Midlands poetry scene and has won national prizes. During lockdown in 2020 he posted a sonnet a day for 96 days. In 2024 he won the Enfield poetry competition, from a thousand entries.
Ilan Kelman https://www.ilankelman.org/ and Instagram/Threads/X @ILANKELMAN and Bluesky ilankelman.bsky.social is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, England and a Professor II at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, integrating climate change into both.
Hastie Salih is a GP and member of Jericho Writers, The Royal Society of Literature, Exiled Ink and GLADD. She has published short stories, poems and two novels – Dahlia and Carys (2023) and The Cradle and the Cage (2025). Hastie has lived in Wales, Germany, Belgium and now Essex. Website: www.hastie-salih.com
The readings and conversation will be recorded and made publicly accessible, in whole or in part, through the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series video playlist, social media and the website we are building around the poetry anthology series.
ABOUT LA MANCHE: JOURNAL OF ENGLISH CHANNEL POETRY
La Manche is volunteer-led and is hosted by Forced Migration and The Arts and the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series.
Books we have published include From Here To There: 101 Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (CivicLeicester, 2025) and Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (CivicLeicester, 2024).
REFERENCES
Call for Poems: Refugees Are As British As Fish And Chips
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