New anthology includes poems by those close to tragedy
An anthology of poems in aid of victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster will be launched next month. Poems for Grenfell Tower, which includes poems by Anne Stevenson, Michael Rosen, George Szirtes and many others, will be published by Onslaught Press on 30 March.
Seventy-one people, according to official police figures, died in the Grenfell Tower fire, which broke out on 14 June last year at a 24-storey public housing block in North Kensington, in the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in London. The rapid growth of the fire is thought to have been accelerated by the building's exterior cladding, which has been in widespread use throughout the country.
The collection of 62 poems includes several by those from or close to the Grenfell community, such as the former head of the local nursery school, an Ethiopian exile who lost many of his neighbours in the disaster, a Big Issue seller who plays in the local steel band, and a firefighter who was there on the night of the blaze. Five of the poets live elsewhere in Europe; four poems not in English have translations beside them.
The anthology is edited by poet Rip Bulkeley, the foreword is by David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, and the cover features a photograph of the monthly Grenfell silent walk by Emily Clack Moulden of White City.
The anthology’s spokesman, poet Tom McColl, said: “One reason the anthology is being released is because - as David Lammy says in the foreword – one year on, ‘the residents of Grenfell are still not being heard’, and Poems for Grenfell Tower ‘encourages readers to listen and bear witness to the human cost of Grenfell’, and is ‘able to express the scale of loss, in a way that prose is not able to do.’ ”
The first book launch will take place at 2.30pm on Sunday 15 April, at the Harrow Club, in Freston Rod, west London. A second launch will be held at 7.30pm on Friday 27 April 27, at the Seven Dials Club, in Earlham Street, west London. At both launches admission will be free, and a collection will be taken for the Grenfell Foundation.
A series of other Grenfell poetry events will be held across Britain, including Machynlleth, Edinburgh, Oxford, Newport, Doncaster, Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester, with more being discussed for Bristol, Glasgow, Bradford, Liverpool and additional London venues.
