"Mapping the Future is a groundbreaking anthology of poetry and original essays offering fresh and daring literary perspectives from a new generation of outstanding British poets. It represents a landmark moment in the history of poetry."—Bernardine Evaristo

‘Established by Bernardine Evaristo, The Complete Works is the most transformative poetry collective ever; in 2008 the number of poets of colour published by major presses was 1%, by 2020 it was 20%. This book represents this seismic shift, with new work by poets including Raymond Antrobus, Warsan Shire and Jay Bernard.’ – Chris McCabe, Librarian, National Poetry Library, in The Bookseller (Autumn 2023 Highlights)

'The year also saw three noteworthy anthologies ... Mapping the Future (Bloodaxe), edited by Nathalie Teitler and Karen McCarthy Woolf, brings together poems and essays from the 30 graduates of the Complete Works, the programme that did so much to bring recognition to British-based poets of colour such as Malika Booker and Roger Robinson.' – Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian (Best poetry books of 2023)

'This generous anthology marks 15 years of the transformative project founded by Bernardine Evaristo and directed by Nathalie Teitler, which has been rocket fuel for work by British poets of majority global heritage ... The 30 Complete Works fellows comprise a roster of some of the most influential voices in the UK today… This volume demonstrates again how visionary that programme of mentorship and real-world opportunities was. There’s a breathtaking variety of poetics ... read this for excitement, inspiration, and also to map, as Eileen Pun puts it, “How thought becomes manifest, how the I / continually tries every variation of light”.' – Fiona Sampson, The Guardian (Poetry Books of the Month)

'A landmark text in British poetry, Mapping the Future reunites the thirty fellows of The Complete Works - a who's who of contemporary British poetry - with selections of new poetic and critical writing. Where the original [TEN] anthologies foregrounded novelty, here are those same artists in full artistic maturity, with conviction and force behind their ambitions, curiosities, solidarities and visions.' – Oluwaseun S. Olayiwola, Poetry Book Society Winter Bulletin 2023

‘The 30 Black and Asian poets in this anthology, among Britain’s leading new generation of poets, were on a mentoring scheme I founded for poets of colour called Complete Works (2007–2017), when under 1% of poetry books in the UK were by poets of colour. By 2020, it was over 20%. It is testament to the power of inclusion initiatives to reinvigorate art forms with new voices and fresh perspectives.’ – Bernardine Evaristo, Service 95 (5 Modern Poets to Note), on Mapping the Future

Karen McCarthy Woolf is the author of two poetry collections and the editor of seven literary anthologies. Her debut collection An Aviary of Small Birds (Carcanet, 2014) was shortlisted for the Forward Felix Dennis and Jerwood Prizes, and was an Observer Book of the Year. Her second, Seasonal Disturbances (Carcanet, 2017), was a winner in the inaugural Laurel Prize for ecological poetry. In 2019 she moved to Los Angeles as a Fulbright postdoctoral scholar and Writer in Residence at the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA exploring the relationship between poetry, law and the impacts of capitalism on black, brown and indigenous bodies. After returning to the UK, 2021 took her to Brazil as an artist in residence at the Sacatar Institute in Bahia where she was researching new work that explores sugar and its cultural and material legacies.

Nathalie Teitler works across the fields of arts, activism and academia. Born in Buenos Aires, she holds a PhD in Latin American Poetry (King’s College London, 2000). She has run literature programmes promoting diversity in the UK for over 20 years, founding the first national mentoring and translation programmes for writers living in exile, and is the Director of The Complete Works. In 2015 she founded the world’s first poetry-dance company, Dancing Words, which produces live pieces and films which have been shown at festivals around the world. She was appointed Projects Manager for the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships in 2018, and has been a director of Bloodaxe Books since 2021.

9     Foreword by Bernardine Evaristo
12     Introduction by Nathalie Teitler
18     Preface by Karen McCarthy Woolf


ROUND 3

Raymond Antrobus
25     The Perseverance
27     Horror Scene as Black English Royal (Captioned)

Leo Boix
29     A Latin American Sonnet
29     A Latin American Sonnet III
30     Eucalyptus

Omikemi Natacha Bryan
32     Sirens
33     Home

Victoria Adukwei Bulley
35     Declaration
36     Pandemic vs. Black Folk
37     Dreaming is a Form of Knowledge Production

Will Harris
39     ‘In June, outrageous stood the flagons…’
40     The Seven Dreams of Richard Spencer
42     Scene Change
44     ‘Take the origin of banal…’

Ian Humphreys
47     The grasshopper warbler’s song
48     Swifts and the Awakening City
50     The wood warbler’s song

Momtaza Mehri
52     Fledglings
54    I AM BRINGING THE HISTORY OF THE KITCHEN SINK
        INTO OUR BEDROOM AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME
55     Imperatives

Yomi Ṣode
57     Exhibition 2.0
59     12:05 in North London, Thinking about Kingsley Smith
60     An Ode to Bruv, Ting, Fam and, on Occasion, Cuz & My Man

Degna Stone
63     Walltown Crags
63     Proof of Life on Earth
65     over {prep., adv}

Jennifer Lee Tsai
67     About Chinese Women
71     The Yellow Woman

ROUND 2

Mona Arshi
75     Yellows
76     February
78     Arrivals
79     from My Little Sequence of Ugliness
80     from The Book of Hurts

Jay Bernard
82     Clearing

Kayo Chingonyi
86     Kumukanda
86     The Colour of James Brown’s Scream
87     Nyaminyami: ‘water can crash and water can flow’
88     Nyaminyami: epilogue

Rishi Dastidar
90     The Brexit Book of the Dead
91     Time takes a moment
92     Neptune’s concrete crash helmet

Edward Doegar
94     from The English Lyric I
94     from The English Lyric II
95     After After Remainder

Inua Ellams
97     from The Half God of Rainfall (Act One, Book I)

Sarah Howe
102     Sometimes I think
103     Relativity
104     from In the Chinese Ceramics Gallery

Adam Lowe
109     Gingerella’s Date
111     Elegy for the Latter-day Teen Wilderness Years
112     Reynardine for Red

Eileen Pun
115     Studio Apartment: Eyrie
116     Longways / Crosswise

Warsan Shire
120     Backwards

ROUND 1

Rowyda Amin
125     Genius Loci
125     We Go Wandering at Night and Are Consumed by Fire

Malika Booker
130     My Ghost in the Witness Stand

Janet Kofi-Tsekpo
135     Yellow Iris
136     Streets
136     The Wilton Diptych

Mir Mahfuz Ali
138     Isn’t
139     My Salma

Nick Makoha
142     Hollywood Africans
143     Mecca
144     JFK

Shazea Quraishi
147     The Taxidermist attends to her work
149     In the Branches of your Voice

Roger Robinson
152     Halibun for the Onlookers
153     Woke
153     Lisbon
154    Returnee
155     Blood

Denise Saul
157     The Room Between Us
158     A Daughter’s Perspective
159     Stone Altar
160     Golden Grove

Seni Seneviratne
162     Lightkeeping
163     The Devil’s Rope
164     The Weight of the World

Karen McCarthy Woolf
166     Excerpts from Un/Safe


ESSAYS

Raymond Antrobus
173     Bird Song and Resonance

Mona Arshi
179     Writing through a Pandemic

Leo Boix
185     Multilingual Writing and Translation: A Poetics of Resistance

Jay Bernard
190     Manifesto: Stranger in the archives

Malika Booker
194     She Will Name Herself Ghost: She Will Haul Up a Poetic Courtroom and There Shall Be a Reckoning

Rishi Dastidar
205     Wanted: a screwball poetics. On why we should try to find comedy in poetry

Will Harris
216     Bad Dreams

Nick Makoha
218     The Black Metic

Momtaza Mehri
224     An Emptying: A Gathering

Karen McCarthy Woolf
228     It is lovely when…Diaspora poetics & the zuihitsu

Inua Ellams
239     On time, money and music

246     Acknowledgements