The World May Be The Same by Hannah Lavery & Marjorie Lotfi
Supported by The Edwin Morgan Trust’s Second Life Award, in spring 2023 Hannah Lavery and Marjorie Lotfi entered into a conversation through a series of poem-letters to explore their experiences of being women and poets of colour living in Scotland. Inspired by the poetry of Edwin Morgan, The World May Be The Same explores what it is to be always asked to represent the notion of ‘shared heritage’ when often, in practice, that heritage means being excluded, belonging to neither.
Marjorie Lotfi is an Iranian-American who has lived in the UK for over 20 years. Her writing considers displacement, home and belonging in the context of the natural world. Marjorie writes with the 12 collective of women writers and is regularly commissioned to create new work. Her poems have won competitions, been published and anthologized widely (including in Scotland’s Best Poems) and been performed on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio 4. She is a Scottish Book Trust Ignite Fellow and a winner of the inaugural James Berry Prize. Her first collection will be published by Bloodaxe Books in 2023 and her pamphlet Refuge, poems about her childhood in revolutionary Iran, is published by Tapsalteerie.
Hannah Lavery is a poet, playwright and director. Her poetry pamphlet Finding Seaglass was published by Stewed Rhubarb and her debut collection, Blood Salt Spring, was published in 2022 by Polygon. The Drift, her highly acclaimed autobiographical lyric play toured Scotland as part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Season 2019. Her play Lament for Sheku Bayoh premiered at Edinburgh International Festival in 2020 and she was appointed Edinburgh Makar in November 2021 for a three-year term. She is an associate artist with the National Theatre of Scotland and one of the winners of the Peggy Ramsay/Film4 Award 2022. She is also an experienced workshop facilitator and won an Leadership Award from Creative Edinburgh for her work with Writers of Colour and her curated film poetry series Sorry I am on Mute for Fringe of Colour.
Stewed Rhubarb Press
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