Anthony Vahni Capildeo

Local poet Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo joins us in January 2023 for our next Poetry Reading in the Bookshop! This set of events aims at celebrating the vibrant variety of Edinburgh’s poets, bringing together new and veteran voices from across the capital.

Winner of The Poetry Book Society Winter Choice 2021 and shortlisted for The Jhalak Prize 2022, Capildeo’s latest poetry collection Like a Tree, Walking is a fresh departure for this famously innovative poet. Taking its title from a story of sight miraculously regained, this collection draws on Capildeo’s interest in ecopoetics and silence. Many pieces originate in specific places, from nocturnes and lullabies in hilly Port of Spain to ‘stillness exercises’ around English trees. These journeys offer a configuration of the political which makes a space for new kinds of address, declaration and relation. Like a Tree, Walking is ultimately a book defined by writing love.

Come along for a fascinating evening with one of the finest poetic voices on the literary scene right now!

Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo FRSL is Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York. Their site-specific work includes responding to Launceston as the Causley Trust Poet in Residence (2022) and new projects on Scottish and Yorkshire built and natural environments. Recent publications include Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, 2021) and A Happiness (Intergraphia, 2022). Capildeo is serving as a judge for the Jhalak Prize (2023).