This event introduces selected poems from Roy McFarlane’s "Living by Troubled Waters"(Nine Arches Press, 2022), which highlight the significance of water in Black British poetry and culture.

In this event, we will read out and comment on McFarlane's poems to retrace the relation of Black lives and various waterbodies in British colonial and environmental history. Some poems recuperate the voices of enslaved Africans who escaped from plantations in Jamaica. Other poems commemorate those people who died on slave ships during the Middle Passage. Our readings will focus on the ways in which water becomes the bearer of stories that mourn the loss of Black lives in the past and present from a personal and public perspective.  

All welcome to listen and share their thoughts! 

Location: the foyer of the Centre for Languages and Literature (Språk- och litteraturcentrum), Helgonabacken 12, Lund

Time: 16:00-17:00. 

Participants: Members of English-literature unit at SOL - Monika Class, Sara Dahlberg, Cian Duffy, Jorunn Joiner, Alissa Kautz, Mari Komnas, John Öwre, Hannah Persson and Elena de Wachter.

The event is part of Sustainability Week 2025, which runs between 5-10 May. Sustainability Week is an annual event in Lund organised as a joint venture by Lund University and Lund municipality. The week serves as a platform for bringing together ideas, raising public awareness and for inspiring sustainable change.