UK Global Majority Poets on Film 2025 with WritersMosaic

The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation and WritersMosaic are delighted to present UK Global Majority Poets on Film 2025, a new short film series expanding the reach of four award-winning, global majority poets through the visual culture of film to be released weekly on our channels and on WritersMosaic, an online magazine celebrating and showcasing UK writers of the global majority.

Working with global majority filmmakers Savannah Acquah and Rob Akin, each poet has created two films: one a performance of their own poetry and another bringing us into contact with a poem which has deeply influenced them. Brought to life in collaboration with the visual imagination of the filmmakers, the eight short films showcase for wider audiences the new, award-winning poetry and poets of our time, utilizing film as a key platform to resonate with the latest poetry in the UK.

The eight-part series, with weekly releases 4/23 through 6/12, features:

1. The Hebridean Crab Apple, directed by Savannah Acquah

Inspired by the mystery of a crab apple tree discovered on an uninhabited outer-Hebridean island, the lonely species potentially being there since the last ice age, poet Marjorie Lotfi reads her poem "The Hebridean Crab Apple." Sat beneath the exquisite beauty and powerful roots of a tree closer to home, she questions whether home is a place, or a decision to stay.

2. After the Blue Note Closes, directed by Rob Akin

Poet Anthony Anaxagorou reads "After the Blue Note Closes," a poem from America by Larry Levis. Sitting in an empty, urban bar, the poet is alone, except for the hum of city nightlife and sounds of jazz coming over the speakers. This attentive film mirrors his sense of emptiness, as he moves back and forth between memories of loss, human connection and relationships past.


3. Right Now I’m Standing, directed by Rob Akin

Poet Jason Allen-Paisant reads his own poem, "Right Now I’m Standing." Set in a black-and-white woodland in the shadow of a plantation house, the film brings into focus Allen-Paisant’s reflections on Blackness and landscape, on what trees and nature hold.


4. Kubla Khan, directed by Savannah Acquah

Poet Jo Clement reads a poem by the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan." The film is set in an enchanting green woodland, featuring a dream-like waterfall, and evokes the beauty, mysticism and prophetic warning of this famous English poem.

5. Prayer, directed by Savannah Acquah

Poet Marjorie Lotfi reads "Prayer," a poem by the late John Burnside. The film, set against the backdrop of a murmuration of birds and the burning flames of a wood fire—each image beautiful in its simplicity—asks us to rejoice in what we already are and have.

6. Things Already Lost, directed by Rob Akin

Poet Anthony Anaxagorou reads his poem "Things Already Lost." The film begins with raindrops in a grey puddle and moves with the poet between muted, melancholic images, reminding us of the loss running through Anaxagorou’s heartfelt poem.

7. The Silence of Plants, directed by Rob Akin

Poet Jason Allen-Paisant reads "The Silence of Plants," a poem by the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska. The film opens with a cacophony of nature playing out, placing the viewer in the treetops, then immersed in the flowers by our feet, encouraging us to wonder at the relationship we have with the earth, animals, and plants.

8. Playing Cards, directed by Savannah Acquah

In an idyllic Cumbrian landscape, home to the Appleby Horse Fair’s annual gathering of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities in the UK, poet Jo Clement reads her poem "Playing Cards," which speaks to her own British-Gypsy heritage. Clement conjures in powerful imagery the long persecution and discrimination endured by Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller people

WritersMosaic Founding Editor Gabriel Gbadamosi says: “The approach to curating these poets and filmmakers is an extension of WritersMosaic's mission to highlight and support the work of global majority writers who constitute a new literary mainstream in the UK—international in outlook and richly diverse in their literary input to our developing culture and society. The four poets reflect this (at times, breathtaking) range: Jason Allen-Paisant (Jamaica), Marjorie Lotfi (Iran and the United States), Jo Clement (Romany-Traveller) and Anthony Anaxagorou (Cyprus), all of whom are now British writers.”

Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation Executive Director Amy Holmes says: “We are proud to produce this series in partnership with WritersMosaic, and to add a new dimension to the work of these outstanding poets through film. Through this collaboration, we invite new audiences to experience the creativity of today’s British poets and filmmakers.”