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Writer in Residence: Anthony V. Capildeo

The Department of English and Related Literature is delighted to host Anthony Capildeo as our Writer in Residence. 

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Anthony 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 books 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), Skin Can Hold (2019), Like a Tree, Walking (2021) and Polkadot Wounds (2024), a collection inspired by the living, recycled, and ruined stones of Launceston, Cornwall, the Charles Causley Trust , and the local martyr, St Cuthbert Mayne.

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."

Anthony works closely with students and staff in English, contributing in dynamic and innovative ways across our syllabus and offering students unrivalled opportunities to develop their creative writing and expression beyond the formal curriculum. They host varied and important speakers as part of our Writers at York series, and work with students to create striking poetry performances for a wide public.

Anthony loves interdisciplinary and multimedia collaborations: enjoy 'Word Fishing', created with illustrator Molly Fairhurst for ‘The Weight of Words’ exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds.  Installed on the façade and wrapping around into the entrance corridor, ‘Word Fishing’ reflects on prehistoric life forms, climate crisis, Yorkshire dialect, and the building’s mirror-like surface of Ubatuba granite. You can take a virtual Curator’s Tour here.

You can also explore notes towards an immersive theatre of poetic process here 'Azure Noise and Kinetic Syntax', or try a creative prompt from .‘What Sparks Poetry', thinking with the emotionally revolutionary writer Martin Carter, Capildeo’s childhood guiding star.

Anthony's residency openeded on the theme of 'Silence, Crisis and Excess', offering 'slow readings' to counteract the 'surround sound' of pandemic discourse with the beauty of words in 'surround silence'. As a regular contributor to PN Review, they have developed thought on ‘Touch and Mourning’, wartime and conscience, and holy relics.

An excerpt from 'Gift of a Staircase'

For the sake of clarity, which is the blackout, whaleback, salient and misguiding aspect of what I now hope to assay, I desire you to accept of me this staircase. I desire it for you in the diminishing of every association of staircase with birdcage. I desire you attentive to the unpicking of your own ribcage. I desire you vertiginous if you rise, if you walk, if you remain. I desire with you ascent.

From ‘Gift of a Staircase’, Utter (Peepal Tree, 2013)

Creative Offerings: new works commissioned for the University of York

Curated by the Writer in Residence

  • A poem film produced by Lilidh Jack, to mark our queer Valentine's/not-a-Valentine's celebration.

Previous Writers in Residence

Previous Writers in Residence have included:

Previous residencies were generously funded by our alumnus, John Martin Tilney and his wife, Maura.