Caleb Femi & Jordan Stephens: On the Dance Floor

The event is inspired by Caleb Femi’s latest and life-affirming poetry collection, The Wickedest.
 
A modern epic, The Wickedest explores the institution of shoobs (parties) through a minute-by-minute depiction of a night at a legendary monthly house party.
 
The poems range from classical English sonnets to experimental forms and are interwoven with photographs, text messages and ephemera, introducing us to a cast of characters surfing a revelry steeped in camaraderie, community, desire and a spirit of jubilant defiance.
The collection calls us to cast our minds to the moments we stood surrounded by our loved ones on a dance floor, arms outstretched, and freed ourselves from the weight of reality to float.
 
Caleb Femi is a writer, director and photographer. His award-winning debut poetry collection, Poor (Penguin, 2020) won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2021. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, longlisted for the Jhalak Prize, selected as a Book of the Year by the New Statesman, Financial Times, The Guardian and the BBC, and added to AQA’s English Literature GCSE syllabus in the UK in 2022.
 
He has directed TV episodes for HBO, the BBC and Netflix, as well as commercials and runway shows. From 2016 to 2018, he was the Young People’s Laureate for London. His second collection, The Wickedest, was published in 2024.
 
Jordan Stephens is a writer and performer best known as one half of the chart-topping duo Rizzle Kicks, who sold over 600,000 copies of their debut album, Stereo Typical (2011), in the UK.
 
Having been publicly open with his own struggles surrounding mental health, Stephens has been active in creating awareness around the stigma. His mental health campaign #IAMWHOLE reached over 120 million people online and was mentioned in the Houses of Parliament. His children’s book The Missing Piece was recently shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Prize. His latest book is the Sunday Times Bestseller Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak and Dogs (Canongate, 2024).