Event: Poetry, Refugees and the English Channel (16th June)

[Ambrose Musiyiwa]

Dear all,

 

Please forward this email to those who may be interested in joining us for this session.

 

The Decolonial Critique would like to invite you to our next event, in collaboration with Ambrose Musiyiwa.

 

We will be discussing Poetry, Refugees and the English Channel in conversation with poets Syd Bolton, Farah Didi, Jennifer Fox, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, and Ambrose Musiyiwa.

 

Some of the questions which will be discussed are as follows:

 

• What does poetry and short prose focusing on refugee deaths in the English Channel reveal?
• What are the systemic factors – political, economic, and historical – that lead to how human beings fleeing conflict and persecution are perishing in the cold waters of the Strait of Dover? 
• How do we remember the dead? 
• How do we confront the policies, ideologies and beliefs that make these deaths permissible and the people unmournable?

 

Date: Tuesday 16th June 2026

 

Time: 6:00pm-7:30pm (UK time zone)

 

Location: Microsoft Teams - the details will be released on The Decolonial Critique listserv nearer to the time of the event.

 

Who can attend: Everyone is welcome.

 

Recording: The discussion will not be recorded.

 

About the poets:

 

Syd Bolton, co-director of The Last Rights Project is a lawyer and advocate for people who have lost their lives, lost their loved ones, on migration journeys across the world.

 

Farah Didi (née Faizal) is a Maldivian poet and retired diplomat whose writing explores rupture, resilience, and justice. Her poetry reflects on political upheaval, the toll of war, and its impact on children and families. She was the first Maldivian woman to earn a PhD.

 

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. 

 

Deborah Tyler-Bennett is a European poet and short fiction writer.  Recent collections include Servants and Labourers (Time/ Place/ Memory, 2023) which was made into a short film by Pudding Bag Productions. She’s currently releasing a podcast of her short story collection, Turned Out Nice Again, from Charnwood Arts. She regularly performs her work.

 

Ambrose Musiyiwa is a poet and journalist with a background in the intersection between activism, migration, and community action. He coordinates Journeys in Translation, an international, volunteer-driven initiative that is translating Over Land, Over Sea: Poems for those seeking refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) into other languages. Ambrose is also the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology coordinator.

 

Optional reading:

 

The Crossing (Documentary, 52mins 48 secs). dir. Jamie Welham, 2021 

Thom Davies, Arshad Isakjee, Lucy Mayblin & Joe Turner (2021) Channel crossings: offshoring asylum and the afterlife of empire in the Dover Strait, Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 44:13, 2307-2327, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2021.1925320

Bidisha Banerjee, Judith Misrahi-Barak & Thomas Lacroix (2024) Introduction: Thanatic Ethics: The Circulation of Bodies in Migratory Spaces, Interventions,
26:1, 1-20, DOI: 10.1080/1369801X.2023.2190917

 

Please forward this email to those who may be interested in joining us for this session.

 

Best wishes,

 

Leon

 

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Dr Leon Moosavi 

Reader & Director of Education, Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Liverpool, UK

Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Departmental profile: click here

List of publications: click here

Ambrose Musiyiwa | Coordinator, Forced Migration and The Arts (Blog), Journeys in Translation (Journal Article; Video Playlist), and The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series (Concept Note; Call for Submissions; Video Playlist; Funding Appeal) | (Ed.) [New Book] Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (CivicLeicester, 2024. Co-edited with Munya R from the migrants' rights collective, Regularise); Welcome to Britain: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (CivicLeicester, 2023); Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (CivicLeicester, 2020)

[Ambrose Musiyiwa]

Dear all,

We will be starting our event in approx. 2 hours (6pm UK time).

We are using Microsoft Teams for the first time and hopefully there will not be any technical issues 🙂

Please join the meeting at this URL (Teams account not required):

https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/8686db5a-878c-47ab-8d04-9571804a1b5d@53255131-b129-4010-86e1-474bfd7e8076

You are welcome to share this link with anyone else who might like to join the discussion.

Best wishes,

Leon

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From: Moosavi, Leon <moo...@liverpool.ac.uk>
Sent: 12 June 2026 14:59
To: The Decolonial Critique <the-decolon...@jiscmail.ac.uk>
Cc: Ambrose Musiyiwa <amus...@googlemail.com>
Subject: Re: Event: Poetry, Refugees and the English Channel (16th June)