New Statesman Spends Time With Caleb Femi

At the New Statesman, Ellen Peirson-Hagger profiles Caleb Femi, a former London Young People's Laureate, whose adolescence in the North Peckham estate of London is the setting of his first poetry collection, Poor (Penguin, 2020). "The effects of the estate’s brutal architecture on its working-class population, which comprised many people of colour, are detailed in these poems, written in Femi’s south-London dialect," Peirson-Hagger writes. More: 

“Who knew the streets was so frail,/could fall apart this easily?” he writes in “Gentle Youth”. “The youts ran in all directions/like scared cattle.”

Until its regeneration and demolition in the early 2000s, the North Peckham estate was a hot-spot for drug-related and violent crimes. It is regularly described as “notorious”, a “racialised” term, Femi said. “What it does is vilify the community. It’s an oversimplification to say that, without asking questions as to how this was a government-approved architectural design. They created a design that allowed for a self-governing community: outreach, and the relationship with the police and other services, was a poor one. I never once saw police patrol on the estate. They were more like a clean-up crew.” [...]

It wasn’t until Femi studied A-level English that he became interested in poetry, although a love of language had been brewing for some time. As a teenager he was a grime fan and listened to Skepta, Wiley and Dizzee Rascal on pirate radio. He became obsessed with writing out lyrics and learning them by heart.

Continue reading at New Statesman.