A memoir and guide on the art of writing poetry in the modern age

“McFarlane’s poems celebrate who he is and where he’s from, never forgetting the sorrow and anger that accompanies what it means to be black and British today.” - Tamar Yoseloff

Part memoir, part meditation on the art of poetry and what it is to live and work as a poet today, The Way of the Poet by Roy McFarlane forges a powerful and visionary path, exploring how reading and writing shapes us, our imaginations, and the world around us.

With reflections on the personal, political and radical nature of writing in troubled times, this is a ground-breaking book from one of the new millennium’s most inspiring writers. Through poetry activism and writers such as Audre Lorde, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Linton Kwesi Johnson, via Jazz and Bruce Lee, to the Windrush generation and Black British history, McFarlane finds the catalyst to keep writing. His deeply moving journey reflects how literature and community can sustain us, and how love, peace and justice can fundamentally sit at the heart of our words.