Yomi Sode - Online Workshop

Following the 2023 Festival and DPF Poetry Prize, Derby Poetry Festival is excited to launch our 2024 workshop series, bringing together poetry and creative writing talent from across the country.

This year's workshop series is all digital and integrates different types of writing, exploring form, world play and prompts, ideal for established writers and those looking to develop their creative practice.

These two-hour workshops will run monthly alternating between Thursday Evenings and Saturday Mornings, starting on Thursday 22nd February.

Workshops will be capped at 30 participants and we expect high interest, so book now to avoid disappointment.

This workshop will be lead by Yomi Ṣode - Saturday 20th July 2024 2024 10:00am - 12:00pm. 

About the workshop: 

Nation language: Unlocking the integral parts of you

Language is a wonderful and weird thing that morphs over time, it protects and holds us, it's verbal and in some cases non verbal. Language journeys through different cultures and countries. Most importantly, it can empower people. Manorism, Yomi’s debut collection, explores this. The book works with the concept of nation-language. From Shakespeare and Stormzy, to elements of Yoruba. Understanding the power of language is integral to the writing process. Join Yomi as talks through Nation language. Be prepared to discuss, write, share work, and have some fun!

Yomi Ṣode is a Nigerian British writer. His debut collection ‘Manorism’, published by Penguin in October 2022 alongside a stage adaptation at the Southbank Centre, is shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023 and the T S Eliot Prize 2022. He was shortlisted for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021, and received the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2019. Yomi's acclaimed one-man show COAT toured nationally to sold-out audiences, including at the Brighton Festival, Roundhouse Camden and the Battersea Arts Centre. In 2020 his libretto Remnants, written in collaboration with award-winning composer James B. Wilson and performed with Chineke! Orchestra premiered on BBC Radio 3.

In 2021, his play, and breathe… premiered at the Almeida Theatre to rave reviews. Yomi is a Complete Works alumnus and a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is the founder of BoxedIn, First Five, The Daddy Diaries, and mentorship programme, 12 in 12.