Patience Agbabi

Patience Agbabi FRSL
Born	1965 (age 58–59) London, England
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Pembroke College, Oxford University of Sussex
Occupation(s)	Poet and performer

Patience Agbabi

She earned an MA in Creative Writing, the Arts and Education from the University of Sussex in 2002, and in September that year was appointed Associate Creative Writing Lecturer at the University of Wales, Cardiff.^[6]

Poetry and performances

Agbabi began performing on the London club circuit in 1995 as a member of the performance group Atomic Lip, which was once described as "poetry's first pop group." Their final tour occurred in 1998, titled "Quadrophonix," which mixed live and video performance in each show. In 1996, she worked on a performance piece called FO(U)R WOMEN, with Adeola Agbebiyi and

The poems in her first book R.A.W., published in 1995, focus on her experiences regarding Thatcherism, urban life, and racial and sexual politics.^[8] The style of these poems "owe much to the rhythms, verbal and associational genius of rap".^[9] Her next collection was Transformatrix (2000), a commentary on contemporary Britain that draws inspiration from popular music forms. "Transformatix" also contains Agbabi's first published adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, reimagining the Wife of Bath as the Nigerian "Mrs. Alice Ebi Bafa".^[10] In 2008, Agbabi published Bloodshot Monochrome, a collection that, as described by one reviewer, highlights social and political issues, captures and considers moments in time through long-dead authors, and offers readers a diverse sampling of the author's views of life in a variety of places."^[11] Carol Rumens has said: "Agbabi characteristically makes poetry an opportunity for conversation with the past, not swamping it but setting new lexical terms."^[12]

As Canterbury Laureate from July 2009 to December 2010, Agbabi received an Arts Council grant to write a full-length poetry collection based on Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales,^[13]. The final product was published in 2014 as Telling Tales, which retold each tale in the Middle-English work to offer a 21st-century take on the characters, its poetry and its performance elements.^[14] The reinterpretation used her critically acclaimed, lyrical poetic style to newly define British literary traditions. The book met with praise from poets including Simon Armitage, who described it as "the liveliest versions of Chaucer you're likely to read."^[15] Agbabi continues to tour Telling Tales as a performance-poetry production shown at literature festivals, arts spaces and libraries across the UK. She performed tales such as "The Wife of Bafa" or "Tit for Tat (Reeves's tale)".

As well as performing in Britain, Agbabi undertook British Council reading tours of Namibia, the Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Germany and Switzerland. She took part in Modern Love, a spoken-word tour produced by Renaissance One, which explored love and modern relationships, touring the UK and Switzerland.

Her poetry has featured on television and radio, including the

She has taught and run workshops and also been poet-in-residence at various places, ranging from Oxford Brookes University and Eton College to a London tattoo and piercing studio.^[19]

In 2018, she was writer in residence at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.^[20]

Awards and recognition

In 1997, Agbabi's first poetry collection, R.A.W (1995), received the Excelle Literary Award.^[21]

In 2000, she was one of 10 poets commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to write a poem for National Poetry Day.^[22]

In 2004, she featured on the

In 2010, Agbabi was appointed as the Canterbury Festival's Canterbury Poet Laureate.^[25][26][27]

In March 2015,

In 2017, Agbabi was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^[29]

Selected works

• R.A.W., Gecko Press (1995).
• Transformatrix,^[30] Canongate Books (2000)
• Bloodshot Monochrome,^[31] Canongate (2008)
• Telling Tales,^[32] Canongate (2014)
• The Wife of Bafa (text);^[33] Analysis of The Wife of Bafa^[34]
• The Infinite, Canongate (2020)

Anthologies

• Carol Ann Duffy, ed., Jubilee Lines (London: Faber & Faber, 2012)
• Sasha Dugdale, ed., Best British Poetry 2012 (Cromer: Salt, 2012)
• Helen Ivory, ed., In Their Own Words (Cromer: Salt, 2012)
• Rob Pope, ed., Studying English Language and Literature: An Introduction and Companion (Oxford: Routledge, 2012)
• Tom Chivers, Adventures in Form (London: Penned in the Margins, 2012)
• Refugee Tales (Manchester: Comma Press, 2016)
• Margaret Busby, ed., New Daughters of Africa (Myriad Editions, 2019)

Further reading

• Charlotte Runcie (2014): "Patience Agbabi: Chaucer remixed. The poet Patience Agbabi tells Charlotte Runcie why she has updated the Canterbury Tales", The Telegraph, 27 April 2014
• Alison Flood (2014): "Funky Chaucer reboot by Patience Agbabi due for April launch", The Guardian, 23 January 2014
• Lee M. Jenkins (2011): "Interculturalism: Imtiaz Dharker, Patience Agbabi, Jackie Kay and contemporary Irish poets", Chapter 8 in: The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century British and Irish Women's Poetry,
  ISBN 9780511973390
  , pp. 119–135.
• Alex Goody (2010): "Contemporary British poetry", in: The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Culture,
  ISBN 9780511780776
  , pp. 137–153.