Theresa Lola for Ceremony for the Nameless

We are thrilled to welcome Theresa Lola to the bookshop for an explorative talk about naming and its power. Join us to celebrate the arrival of the remarkable Ceremony for the Nameless, the second collection from the award-winning poet and former Young People’s Laureate for London.

In Yoruba culture, newborn babies are welcomed into the world and ushered into the social fabric through naming ceremonies with praise songs. The bestowed names convey where the baby has come from, involving its birth circumstances and the atmosphere in its new home, and where its future will take it.

The book explores the act of naming and its role in shaping our identities, our aspirations, what we carry and how we belong. Lola conjures and questions the realities of her dual Nigerian-British identity, traces the lineages of names and asks why some deserve to be named while others are treated as invisible.

In lyrical and joyful poems, Lola breaks down the complexities of the diasporic experience and how it is woven through family life, history and memory.