the87press present Mushaira: Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay + Maya Caspari + Tom Branfoot + Perla Kantarjian + Roger Robinson + Anthony V. Capildeo + CAConrad+ DJ Jimmy Two Shoes + Chef Yogi pop up kitchen

Join the87press for Mushaira, an evening of poetry, music, and community. Rooted in the South Asian tradition of shared verse and gathering, Mushaira is a live literature series celebrating unique and emerging poetic voices.

With readings by Roger Robinson, Anthony V. Capildeo, Perla Kantarjian, Tom Branfoot, Maya Caspari, Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay, and a short opening reading by CAConrad.

This evening celebrates the publication of three poetry collections—Volatile, the debut collection by northern poet Tom Branfoot, You Must Become Field, the debut collection by Lebanese-Armenian poet Perla Kantarjian, and Some Sacred Harbour by prize-winning poet and musician Roger Robinson.

DJ Jimmy Two Shoes will warm up the dancefloor and Chef Yogi’s pop up kitchen will be serving up Sri Lankan cuisine.
To help the chef prepare and minimise food waste, please purchase your tickets as soon as possible. All meals will range from £10-£15 with smaller snack options also

Perla Kantarjian: Perla Kantarjian Perla Kantarjian is a Lebanese-Armenian writer with recent work in Mizna, Electric Literature, Wasafiri, The Rumpus, and Black Warrior Review. Longlisted for the National Poetry Competition and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, Kantarjian is Pushcart Prize nominated and has garnered recognition from the Southbank Centre, The Poetry Society, Palette Poetry, and more. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where she was selected as Sonny Mehta Scholar. Her debut poetry collection, You Must Become Field, is forthcoming from Bad Betty Press in 2026.

Maya Caspari: Maya Caspari Maya Caspari is a writer, researcher, and curator. Her poetry pamphlet Almost, with Tenderness was published by Out-Spoken Press in 2025. She has been highly commended in the Forward Prizes, longlisted in the National Poetry Competition and shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. Her work has appeared in magazines including Poetry Review, Propel, Wasafiri and Ambit. She is a Lecturer at the University of York - her monograph on memory, resistance, and the politics of touch will be published in 2027. Photo by Robin Silas Christian

Roger Robinson: Roger Robinson Roger Robinson won the T.S. Eliot Prize (2019), the RSL Ondaatje Prize (2020) and the Cholmondeley Award (2024). He is a Royal Society of Literature Fellow and has been shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, the OCM Bocas Poetry Prize, the Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, and the European Prize for Freedom.His collection A Portable Paradise was named a New Statesman Book of the Year. His book Home Is Not a Place, created in collaboration with Johny Pitts, was a Guardian Poetry Book of the Year and shortlisted for the British Book Awards. He has also been a collaborator with the artist Hurvin Anderson on his monograph published by Rizzoli in 2022 Photo by Ron Timehin

Tom Branfoot: Tom Branfoot Tom Branfoot is a poet and critic from Bradford. He won a Northern Writers' Award in 2024 and the New Poets Prize 2022. He organises the poetry reading series More Song in Bradford. Tom is the author of This Is Not an Epiphany (Smith|Doorstop) and boar (Broken Sleep Books), both published in 2023. His poem ‘A Parliament of Jets’ was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2025. Volatile is his debut collection.

Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay: Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay is a Bengali poet, musician, and anthropologist, and the author of the books this is our war (Penmanship Press, Brooklyn, 2016) and everything is always leaving (M.C. Sarkar & Sons, Kolkata, 2019), and poetry album "i don’t know anyone here" (2020). She was the first Nashville Youth Poet Laureate, finalist for the first National Youth Poet Laureate, and Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. Her latest book Towards a Poetic Memory of Bengal Partition was out with Natyachinta in December 2023. She was the poet and bassist in the band JAWARI, whose debut album "ROAD RASA” propelled them to the Paris Olympics and SXSW. With a Masters’ in Migration and Diaspora at SOAS and a Masters’ in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, find her work in Poetry Society of America, Tagvverk, and Anthropocene, among others.

Anthony V. Capildeo: Anthony V. Capildeo Trinidadian Scottish writer Anthony V. Capildeo FRSL has published seventeen poetry titles and one volume of non-fiction, Masqueraders: Selected Essays (Carcanet, 2026). Their work draws on research and influences ranging from Old Norse to Caribbean traditional masquerade. Capildeo is Writer in Residence and Professor at the University of York, an Honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford, and a Lay Dominican with the Edinburgh fraternity. Capildeo believes that a fossil fuel-free, genocide-free books industry is possible. photo credit: Aileen Lees

Jimmy Two Shoes: Jimmy Two Shoes Forever a humble student of the dancefloor, Jimmy Two Shoes is inspired by music and its capacity for creating those magical moments. As a Subtle Radio resident and multi-genre label boss of Sub Merchants, Jwarn seamlessly navigates an array of bass-infused flavors, delivering the flows to wriggle your toes to.

CAConrad: CAConrad CAConrad has worked with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual for over 50 years. Their latest poetry collection is First Light (Wave Books / UK Penguin, 2027). They received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a PEN award, a Creative Capital grant, and other awards. The Book of Frank is now available in a dozen languages, with a forthcoming Korean translation in 2027. They exhibit their poems as sculpture with recent shows in London, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Melbourne, Porto, Santander, and Chicago. They teach at Sandberg Art Institute and De Ateliers in Amsterdam, and at Bard College's MFA program. They live in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Please visit them at CAConrad.com Photo by Augusto Cascales