Esther Phillips, Poet Laureate of Barbados

The SOAS University of London Library is delighted to host Esther Phillips, Poet Laureate of Barbados.

At this event, Esther will be reading from her working collection entitled Plantation. The purpose of these poems is to memorialise the experiences of enslaved women during the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the 17th and 19th centuries. She believes that her current research at SOAS will assist her in completing this collection.

Following the reading, a discussion will be led by a SOAS College of Humanities faculty member. This discussion will attempt to explore Esther’s visionary work and hopefully inspire new generations of students, writers, and scholars.

About the speaker

Esther Phillips gained an MFA in Creative Writing in 1999 from the University of Miami and won the Alfred Boas Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets for her poetry collection/thesis.

Her published works include chapbook, La Montee (LRC, UWI); When Ground Doves Fly (Ian Randle Publishers); The Stone Gatherer; Leaving Atlantis, and Witness in Stone (Peepal Tree Press) Her poetry has been published in several anthologies, regionally and internationally and her work has been recorded by the Poetry Archive, U.K.

Esther Phillips is the founder and director of Writers Ink Inc. as well as the Bim Literary Festival & Book Fair. She is the editor of the iconic BIM: Arts for the 21st Century and was the producer of the CBC radio programme, What’s That You’re Reading? She initiated the Bridgetown Literary Tour and is a retired Chair of the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Committee. In March 2018, Esther Phillips was appointed the first Poet Laureate of Barbados and was recently re-appointed. She is currently a Visiting Fellow/Poet in Residence at SOAS - University of London.