T.S.Eliot Poetry Prize Winner 2021
Polari Best LGBT Book Prize Winner 2022
Saboteur spoken word artist of the year 2022
Literary Agent Laura MacDougall at United Agents
Producer Tom MacAndrew
Short Biography
Joelle Taylor is the author of 4 collections of poetry. Her most recent collection C+NTO & Othered Poems won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize, and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors. C+NTO is currently being adapted for theatre with a view to touring. She is a co- curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre, and tours her work nationally and internationally in a diverse range of venues, from Australia to Brazil. She is also a Poetry Fellow of University of East Anglia and the curator of the Koestler Awards 2023. She has judged several poetry and literary prizes including Jerwood Fellowship, the Forward Prize, and the Ondaatje Prize. Her novel of interconnecting stories The Night Alphabet will be published by Riverrun in Spring of 2024. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year. Her most recent acting role was in Blue by Derek Jarman, which was directed by Neil Bartlett and featured Russell Tovey, Jay Bernard, and Travis Alabanza. Blue sold out its run across the UK and more dates are expected for the future.
Full Biography
Joelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright, author and editor. She has performed across the UK as well as internationally, both for the British Council (Zimbabwe, Brazil, Botswana, Australia and Singapore) and on solo projects across Europe.
She has read in a diverse range of venues from the 100 Club, the 02 Arena, the Royal Festival Hall and Ronnie Scott’s to the Royal Court, the Globe, the ICA, Buckingham Palace and various prisons including Pentonville and Holloway.
She has published three full collections of poetry: Ska Tissue (2011, Mother Foucault Press), The Woman Who Was Not There (2014, Burning Eye Books), and her latest collection Songs My Enemy Taught Me (2017, Out-Spoken Press).
Her most recent collection Songs My Enemy Taught Me (Out-Spoken Press) was inspired by fusing her own story of surviving sexual abuse with masterclasses engaging groups of vulnerable women across the UK. Speaking to refugees, prisoners, young mothers, survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, the collection powerfully evokes the struggles women still face globally in the 21st Century.
“These poems of witness are a reckoning, where the poet says - woman I am you, I see you, I feel you.” - Malika Booker
Joelle’s previous collection The Woman Who Was Not There (Burning Eye) was named as one of the UK’s top ten recommended collections in the Morning Star and was described by Benjamin Zephaniah as ‘Fearless. This is poetry with purpose’.
She has been anthologised widely in English, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, Estonian, Finnish, Arabic and Ndebele; and her work is a Subject for Study on the OCR GCSE English syllabus.
A former UK slam champion, she founded the national youth slam championships SLAMbassadors in 2001 for the Poetry Society and was its Artistic Director and National Coach until 2018.
She founded and is the Artistic Director and Lead Mentor on Borderlines - a new international spoken word project that links 10 UK cities with 7 European countries to discuss the theme of ‘borders’.
As an educator she has lead workshops and residencies in schools, prisons, youth centres, refugee groups, and other settings for organisations including the Poetry Society, the British Council, Arvon Foundation and English PEN. She featured on TEDx Talks and Outsider Lectures, and was recently awarded a Southbank Centre Change Maker prize, in recognition of her life-changing work on the national youth slams. She has a Fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts and was longlisted for the 2017 Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship.
In 2017 Joelle featured in a BBC documentary We Belong Here, about the role of poetry in post- Brexit Britain alongside Lemn Sissay, Jack Underwood and Sabrina Mahfouz. She was commissioned by the BBC to write a piece for the Hull City of Culture celebrations, broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, and featured in Powerlines, a radio documentary for BBC Radio 4 about the role of the poet as social activist.
She has appeared on several television (Faking It, Blue Peter, the One Show, Vanessa Feltz Show) and radio programmes (Women’s Hour, Radio 1 Extra, the Edwina Curry Show). A documentary about her life and work Life Changing Verse was made by Don Productions in 2010 and broadcast on television. She recently featured in Educating the East End for Channel 4, as well as appearing on Sky News to speak about the role of poetry in UK schools.
She was the joint founder and Artistic Director of Spin/ Stir Women’s Physical Theatre Collective with Vanessa Lee. Her plays include: Naming (Oval House Theatre), Whorror Stories (Oval House Theatre), Whorror Stories II ( Oval House Theatre), Lucid Johnston (Kings Head Theatre and Oval House Theatre), and Abigail’s Play Party (Royal Festival Hall) .
Her most recent spoken word theatre piece CUNTO (Battersea Arts Centre, 2018) was commissioned by Apples & Snakes and is in development for a full production.
The National Portrait Gallery has commissioned a portrait of her as part of their 2019 exhibition of Contemporary Poets.
Her collection of short stories The Night Alphabet is due for completion in 2019.
She is the host of London’s premier night of poetry and music Out-Spoken and a member of the curation team.
Bibliography
She is included in numerous anthologies, most notably Astersims (Laudanum 2016), She Grrrowls (Burning Eye 2017), The Dizziness of Freedom (Bad Betty Press 2018), and 84 (Verve Poetry Press).
Her books include BRAND (2009), Intwasa (Ama 2008), Acts of Passion (Routledge 1998), BRAND 2 (2011), and Domestic Violence (Scarlet Press 1995). She has also written numerous texts about theatre and slam poetry for small publications and online texts. She has been published in Wasafari and Magma among other literary magazines, as well as a chapter on slam poetry for Making Poetry Happen (2015 Bloomsbury).
Her multi-textual magic realist novel The Woman Who Looked Through Walls has just been completed, and she is working on her first full collection of short stories The Night Alphabet.
- Books
- Holding Out (Commonword, 1987)
- Domestic Violence (Scarlet Press, 1995)
- Putting Your Daughter on the Stage (Routledge, 1996)
- Brand – Jerusalem Jones (Goldsmiths Press 2008)
- Brand – Abigail’s Play Party (Goldsmiths Press 2009)
- The Ghosts of Soho (Mother Foucault 2010)
- Intwasa Anthology (Intwasa, British Council, 2008)
- Ska Tissue poetry collection (Mother Foucault 2011)
- The Woman Who Was Not There poetry collection (Burning Eye Books, 2014)
- Making Poetry Happen (Bloomsbury 2015)
- Safe Ground Anthology (Safe Ground, 2015)
- Out Spoken Anthology (Outspoken Press, 2015)
- Intercity Flow Anthology (Smokestack 2015)
- Write Minds Anthology (Big White Shed 2016)
- Asterism Anthology (Laudanum Press 2016)
- She Grrrowls Anthology (Burning Eye Books, 2017)
- Songs My Enemy Taught Me (Out Spoken Press 2017)
- The Dizziness of Freedom anthology (Bad Betty Press)
- 84 anthology (Verve Poetry Press)
- Plays and Choreo-Poems
- Naming (Oval House Theatre, 1994)
- (W)horror Stories I ( Oval House Theatre, 1996)
- (W)horror Stories II (Oval House Theatre, 1997)
- High Heels on Hind Legs ( ICA, Kings Head, Latchmere, 1998)
- Lucid Johnston (Kings Head, Oval House Theatre, the Garage, ICA, 1999/ 2005)
- Abigail’s Play Party (2009)
- CUNTO (Battersea Arts Centre, 2018)
Literary Agent Laura MacDougall at United Agents
Producer Tom MacAndrew