Shazea Quraishi – författare

Taking inspiration from sources including historical and medical texts, curator's notes and the Complete Kama Sutra, Shazea Quraishi's poems explore love and loss through a range of voices: an Iraqi mother holds her fragile son; under the guise of ardour, a courtesan searches a client for signs of the woman she loves; a wife is unsettled by her husband's new family - The Art of Scratching is her first book-length collection, and includes The Courtesans Reply, a sequence written in response to the Caturbhani, four plays written around 300 BC on the life of courtesans in India.

The Glimmer is a meditation on the time-span of life illuminated by many voices. In an artists’ colony in Mexico, a taxidermist tends animals in their after-life, contemplating what remains of us after death. Among the artists she encounters are a painter of miniatures, a war photographer, a light artist, a ghazal singer, and dancers from Tanzteater Wuppertal, as they reflect on the impulse to make work and meaning in a world where value is increasingly monetised.Within the extended narrative are self-contained poems ranging in form from syllabics and ghazals to OULIPO-inspired anagram poems, drawing on found text and verbatim speech to bring a choir of voices to life. The title work is followed by two elegies.The Glimmer is Shazea Quraishi’s second full-length book of poetry, following her debut, The Art of Scratching.

The Glimmer is a book of poems illuminated by many voices. In an artists’ colony in Mexico, a taxidermist tends animals in their afterlife and contemplates what remains of us after death. She is joined by artists including a painter of miniatures, a war photographer, filmmaker, light artist, novelist and a ghazal singer, as well as dancers from Tanzteater Wuppertal, as they reflect on the impulse to make work and meaning in a world that increasingly monetises art. Shazea Quraishi’s second book-length collection ranges in form from syllabics and ghazals to OULIPO-inspired anagram poems, drawing on found text and verbatim speech to bring a choir of voices to life. The book ends with two elegies.

'The Courtesans Reply' is a long poem sequence in the voices of Indian courtesans - women famed for their skills in music, dancing, storytelling and the art of love. Playing on historical findings, and drawing inspiration from the monologue plays of the Caturbhani and The Complete Kama Sutra, these poems give voice once again to the courtesans - and the men they loved - after centuries of silence. Shazea Quraishi was born in Pakistan and lived in Canada and Spain before moving to London. Her poetry has been published in anthologies and journals in the UK and US including Ten (Bloodaxe), The Financial Times, Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation and PN Review. In 2008 she was one of ten poets selected for The Complete Works, a two-year professional development programme for Black and Asian poets. Since 2010, Shazea has worked with English PEN's Readers & Writers programme as a creative writing tutor in refugee centres and prisons. She also teaches Improving English through Creativity - a programme she developed - at a refuge for South Asian women. 'The Courtesans Reply', is being adapted as a play.