Chan

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. She has lived in London, Brighton and Santa Cruz, California. She studied American Literature at the University of Sussex and has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies. She has worked as a teacher of literature and creative writing, recently completed her work on a PhD, and is now a lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University. Her pamphlet The Hitcher (The Rialto, 2011) was widely praised. Her first book-length collection Chick (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry, and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. This was followed by two pamphlets, R x (sine wave peak, 2013) and Ormonde (Hercules Editions, 2014), and her family memoir Long Time No See (Periscope, 2015). She also read from Long Time, No See on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in 2015. Her second full-length collection, Chan, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016. She is the current poet in residence at Keats House and a commissioned writer on the Colonial Countryside Project with the University of Leicester and Peepal Tree Press.

'This is an outstanding, unputdownable first collection' - John Glenday.; 'An unforgettable book. In an age where blurby superlatives compete on debut book covers, this one has an edge: it is ABOUT someone, namely the poet's late father, from whose name it takes its title... "Say", which exploits understatement to the full, is remarkable, and heartbreaking' - Helena Nelson, Magma.; 'Hannah Lowe's debut collection is wonderful... a book which deals plainly and honestly with big emotions and tender, dramatic personal scenes' - Declan Ryan, Ambit.; 'Lowe's poetry is vibrant and sensitive, devoted to the retrieval of "lost, forgotten things"... skilful, bittersweet' - Chloe Stopa-Hunt, Poetry Review.

• 1. What I Play is Out de Window! Ribs Sax I Sax II Cherokee Pinewood Suite, unrecorded, 1958 Quintet at a Party, 1963 What is and isn't Jazz? Green Amoeba Mingus Sophisticated, slick Alpha Boy All The Bodies in the Foreign Ground, 5000 Miles From Home Coda 2. Out of Many Ran Awa, My Mulatto Boy Justice Out of Many High Yellow Brown Eyes Blue 'Honey' Hakka Paper Baby Lowe Geaneology Eleven O'Clock Child Borderliner Mitchell/Mingus Scott Joplin Rag Fourteen Days in May What Do I Remember of Sophia? What Charlie Said Chin 3. If I Could Write Honestly A Short Biography of My Father Oranges Gloves If I Could Write Honestly Shells For Ida Yam and Callalloo What Ida Said 4. Ormonde Ormonde What I know Distressed British Seamen White Stowaway Schoolboy Dressmaker Boxer Passieros Twist In Ship-breaking Johnny Cakes On Cannon Street Chan