Jill Abram has been Director of Malika’s Kitchen since 2010. She grew up in Manchester, travelled the world and now lives in Brixton. She worked for BBC Radio, specialising in making sound effects for comedy programmes. Her poems have been published in Under the Radar, The Rialto, Magma, Tears in the Fence, #MeToo Anthology, And Other Poems, The High Window and Ink Sweat & Tears. She performs her poems in London and beyond, including Ledbury Poetry Festival, Paris and USA. Jill produces and presents a variety of poetry events and she created and curates the Stablemates reading series.
In 2001 Malika Booker and Roger Robinson were young, black poets being overlooked by the poetry establishment, but serious about their work and dedicated to their craft. They invited other poets to join them around Malika’s kitchen table in Brixton every Friday night to inspire and encourage each other, share ideas and workshop poems.
Twenty years later, Malika’s Poetry Kitchen still meets on Friday nights and is celebrating two decades with an anniversary anthology, Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different. This diverse collective has nurtured some of the finest poets to emerge in the UK this century.
Members and alumni have graced the shortlists of major poetry awards and are some of the most important poets writing today. The organisation has inspired Malika’s Poetry Kitchen branches worldwide, from Chicago to Delhi.
Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (aka MPK, aka Kitchen) is a writers’ collective founded in Brixton by Malika Booker and Roger Robinson in 2001. It nurtures the writing, performance and careers of poets by emphasising craft, community and development.
Jill Abram has been the Director since 2010. Under her stewardship, the group meets for workshops on Friday evenings (the saying goes that, as MPK members give their Friday nights over to poetry, we must be very dedicated).
Some sessions are led by members of the collective, others by guest poets from the UK and beyond, such as Kei Miller, Mona Arshi and Olive Senior. MPK Alumni include Inua Ellams, Warsan Shire, Kayo Chingonyi, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Nick Makoha and Aoife Mannix.
This lively, London-based community of dedicated poets has inspired similar Kitchen models to be set up worldwide, from Chicago to Delhi, creating an international MPK family.
Meet previous directors
”I write for that bullied little girl in the playground who didn’t see herself reflected. Literature’s a tapestry which has been a white cotton cloth bleached of other narratives. I’m writing to be a part of that tapestry.
Malika BookerFounder
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