Featuring essays from the author originally written for radio, a new edition of the Rathbone Folio Prize-longlisted collection by firebrand poet, playwright and performer Inua Ellams

LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2021

Including essays from the author published for the first time in print

'I was blown away by this book' BERNARDINE EVARISTO

The Actual is a symphony of personal and political fury sometimes probing delicately, sometimes burning with raw energy. In poems that swerve and crackle with a rare music, Inua Ellams unleashes a full-throated assault on empire and its legacies of racism, injustice and toxic masculinity.

Written on the author's phone, in transit, between meetings, before falling asleep and just after waking, this is poetry as polemic, as an act of resistance, but also as dream-vision. At its heart, this book confronts the absolutism and 'foolish machismo' of hero culture from Perseus to Trump, from Batman to Boko Haram. Through the thick gauze of history, these breathtaking poems look the world square in the face and ask, 'What the actual . . . ?'

'Bristles with energy . . . Consistently vivid' GUARDIAN

"Bristles with energy, reflecting how these poems were written, directly on to his phone in moments grabbed while travelling, between meetings, before sleeping, while sleeping . . . The square lyrics, prose-like in appearance, are consistently vivid, whether Ellams is taking on the biggest of subjects – Shakespeare, Trump, empire – or ruminating on quieter, more tender moments, especially on the endless failings of men" - GUARDIAN