English and Related Literature
Writer in Residence
Posted on 13 January 2020
Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Vahni earned their DPhil in Old Norse literature and translation theory as a Rhodes Scholar at Christ Church, University of Oxford. They are one of the most exciting contemporary poets, and highly influential as a writer, commentator and performer.
Capildeo’s poems engage themes of geographic, intimate, and linguistic distances and proximities. Their poetry collections include No Traveller Returns (2003), Utter (2013), Measures of Expatriation (2016), which won the 2016 Forward Prize for Best Collection, Venus as a Bear (2018) and Skin Can Hold (2019). Selecting Measures of Expatriation for the Forward Prize, the judging panel chair Malika Booker stated, ‘We found a vertiginous excitement in the way in which the book grasps its subject: the sense of never quite being at home. This is poetry that transforms. When people in the future seek to know what it’s like to live between places, traditions, habits and cultures, they will read this’.
This year, Vahni has already published a pamphlet, Odyssey Calling, written partly during a stormy night on Lindisfarne.
Vahni will work closely with students in English, contributing in dynamic and innovative ways across our syllabus, as well as offering students unrivalled opportunities to develop their creative writing and expression beyond the formal curriculum. They will bring varied and important voices to our ‘Writers at York’ series and other events, and will work with students to create striking poetry performances for a wide public.
Office Hours, Autumn 2019: Tuesdays from 10.00 and Fridays from 11.30.