Nadine El-Enany was joint winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize in 2024, when she also won the Newcastle University Chancellor’s Poetry Prize. Her first collection of poems, Pelican Daughter, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2026. Her poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Poetry Wales, And Other Poems and Under the Radar. She is Professor of Law at Kent Law School, having previously been Reader in Law at Birkbeck College, where she was Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Law, and a Lecturer in Law at Brunel University. She is the author of (B)ordering Britain: Law, race and empire (Manchester University Press, 2020), co-author of Empire’s Endgame: Racism and the British State (Pluto Press, 2021), and co-editor of After Grenfell: Violence, Resistance and Response (Pluto Press, 2019). She lives in London.

These poems of Nadine El-Enany gorgeously anticipate her readers who wait at the ends of her utterances, desirous of consolation, we 'who look for ourselves in each other'. A bracing social consciousness melds with a lyric transparency that make these poems supple enough to startle readers to that place where 'only new things happen'.

• I13 Seagull14 One hundred animals 16 Kent State Pietà17 Hackney Central18 Back next Thursday19 Pride20 Beautiful life21 I console myself with jigsaws22 Half-life theory 23 Jesus on the towpath24 Endling25 August26 Ceasefire II28 Gospel Oak29 Frontier 24 May 200030 Newton’s cradle31 Touching32 Nunnery33 The kiss34 Postcard35 White porcelain button36 A moment without you37 They said the flour would arrive at four38 Returning from the peace march III40 Pelican daughter42 Transference 43 Alphabites44 Sleep-talk45 Paper butterfly46 Accidental taxidermist47 Trees and houses48 First day back49 Clay star50 Young hare 51 Motherese 52 Lichtjahre IV54 January55 Close by the Aspens56 What the plum teaches 57 Millfields Park58 In vitro59 What is sickness 60 Edge 61 The train to Chingford 62 Like new63 Natura morta64 April V66 All it takes67 In the middle pages of her memoir68 Nothing can happen 69 If you ask me what I have left to give70 Ealing Broadway71 Naming the money72 Taking a pregnancy test in Dublin73 September74 Ceramic seashell VI77 December 78 The family79 Telling my sister80 Lately I’ve melted81 Baby on board82 Umbilical cord83 Maternal Assessment Unit84 Black Park85 Golden days86 Detached houses87 Autumn leaves88 Fox is dying89 Bellinghausen Sea90 Christmas Eve 93 Acknowledgements95 Biographical note

Nadine El-Enany was joint winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize in 2024, when she also won the Newcastle University Chancellor’s Poetry Prize. Her first collection of poems, Pelican Daughter, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2026. Her poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Poetry Wales, And Other Poems and Under the Radar. She is Professor of Law at Kent Law School, having previously been Reader in Law at Birkbeck College, where she was Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Race and Law, and a Lecturer in Law at Brunel University. She is the author of (B)ordering Britain: Law, race and empire (Manchester University Press, 2020), co-author of Empire’s Endgame: Racism and the British State (Pluto Press, 2021), and co-editor of After Grenfell: Violence, Resistance and Response (Pluto Press, 2019). She lives in London.

These poems of Nadine El-Enany gorgeously anticipate her readers who wait at the ends of her utterances, desirous of consolation, we 'who look for ourselves in each other'. A bracing social consciousness melds with a lyric transparency that make these poems supple enough to startle readers to that place where 'only new things happen'.

• I13 Seagull14 One hundred animals 16 Kent State Pietà17 Hackney Central18 Back next Thursday19 Pride20 Beautiful life21 I console myself with jigsaws22 Half-life theory 23 Jesus on the towpath24 Endling25 August26 Ceasefire II28 Gospel Oak29 Frontier 24 May 200030 Newton’s cradle31 Touching32 Nunnery33 The kiss34 Postcard35 White porcelain button36 A moment without you37 They said the flour would arrive at four38 Returning from the peace march III40 Pelican daughter42 Transference 43 Alphabites44 Sleep-talk45 Paper butterfly46 Accidental taxidermist47 Trees and houses48 First day back49 Clay star50 Young hare 51 Motherese 52 Lichtjahre IV54 January55 Close by the Aspens56 What the plum teaches 57 Millfields Park58 In vitro59 What is sickness 60 Edge 61 The train to Chingford 62 Like new63 Natura morta64 April V66 All it takes67 In the middle pages of her memoir68 Nothing can happen 69 If you ask me what I have left to give70 Ealing Broadway71 Naming the money72 Taking a pregnancy test in Dublin73 September74 Ceramic seashell VI77 December 78 The family79 Telling my sister80 Lately I’ve melted81 Baby on board82 Umbilical cord83 Maternal Assessment Unit84 Black Park85 Golden days86 Detached houses87 Autumn leaves88 Fox is dying89 Bellinghausen Sea90 Christmas Eve 93 Acknowledgements95 Biographical note