Meet south London’s most promising young poets

It’s Friday night in Brixton and a group of friends ranging in age from teenagers up to a 73-year-old man are hanging out.

Their conversation is free flowing and easy, until a young man, who goes by the stage name Basq Lyon, stands up and starts performing:

The shame society projects on to

my black-British identity

means that I see it as my responsibility

to represent the black community,

celebrate that part of me relentlessly,

make it my priority to speak up.

The crowd goes wild, cheering and whooping.

This piece was written as part of the Mixed Race Faces project, which captures and celebrates the stories of people with mixed heritage.

The supportive nature of the poetry community is one of the reasons poet Ryan Matthews-Robinson, better known as Ragz-CV, was inspired to found Poetic Unity in 2015.

This Brixton-based charity aims to “give a voice to the voiceless” through the medium of poetry.

Not only do they organise workshops in schools and colleges, they also host bi-weekly spoken word events in Brixton’s Black Cultural Archives, as well as virtual events on Instagram every Wednesday.

“Poetry allows you to be yourself more than any other art form in my experience,” says Ryan.

“It allows you to be completely honest.

“The poetry community is very non judgemental – our spoken word nights are safe spaces where young people can be themselves with no repercussions.”

Ryan has mixed memories of growing up between Brixton and Tulse Hill.

As a man of Jamaican-Irish descent, he loved the vibrancy of Brixton’s Caribbean community and music scene, which saw him and his friends host a grime show on a local pirate radio station.

However, he also remembers feeling unable to fully express himself.

“There was a lot of violence and crime around and you had to be a certain way to survive that environment,” he says. 

“I guess it gave me thick skin for the world as I got older and shaped the man I’ve become.

“People underestimate how much they have to put on a facade in work, school and for their parents.

“When they’re with our community, they’re just being unapologetically themselves.

“It’s amazing to watch them grow in confidence week on week.”

Get involved

You can support Poetic Unity by donating on their website, attending their spoken word event and generally spreading the word about their work.