The poems of Tanya Shirley are now available for purchase on CD from The Poetry Archive, an online poetry resource that makes recordings of poets reading their works accessible to the public. Some of Shirley's poems are available for a free listen, or you may opt to buy a full length CD containing thirty of her works.
Tanya Shirley is a Jamaican poet and author. She graduated from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, where she would eventually teach, in addition to earning a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. She has been widely published in journals and anthologies, such as Small Axe, The Caribbean Writer and So Much Things to Say: 100 Calabash Poets, among others.
She Who Sleeps With Bones was the debut collection from Shirley, published in 2009 by Peepal Tree Press. Also among her accomplishments, Tanya Shirley has participated in Callaloo Creative Workshops and is Cave Canem fellow.
The recordings for The Poetry Archive were made in 2011 at the University of the West Indies' Radio Education Unit in Kingston, Jamaica. The selections available online, in streaming audio, are "Montego Bay", "The Distance Between Us", "Sunday Ritual" and "Matie Shall Not Conquer". Tanya Shirley stands solidly aside other notable Caribbean poets at The Poetry Archive, such as Jean "Binta" Breeze, Mervyn Morris and Olive Senior.
Comments