The UNDERTOW artist development scheme for multilingual young poets is open!
Apply now for UNDERTOW 2024!
Please note the application deadline has been extended to midnight on Sunday, September 8th 2024.
The Poetry Translation Centre is looking for young poets in the UK with an interest in multilingual creativity to join our UNDERTOW programme. Now in its third year, UNDERTOW is the PTC’s artist development scheme for young poets that focuses on working with people from mixed heritage and diaspora backgrounds to unlock the creative potential of polylingualism.
This year’s UNDERTOW participants will take part in workshops and seminars to build up their creative practice and receive one-to-one mentoring with the poet and critic Kit Fan. The young poets will also be able to share their work publicly at a showcase event at the Manchester Poetry Library and develop their skills as creative facilitators and workshop leaders.
Kit Fan will be the lead tutor on the course this year, delivering workshops and providing one-on-one mentoring, both with an emphasis on deepening the participants' critical engagement with their own work. He says: "A language, like a culture, is not an island. I'm thrilled to be part of UNDERTOW, a multi-faceted developmental programme to support polylingual poets to reflect and scrutinise their art and craft."
The participants will also all be paired with a young multilingual poet in Singapore for peer-to-peer mentoring to help them further develop their multilingual creativity as part of our international partnership with Sing Lit Station.
The programme will be run by the PTC in Partnership with Manchester Poetry Library and SingLit Station, Singapore. The majority of the course will be delivered online over seven months, with monthly activities and peer-to-peer sessions, plus there will be meet-ups in Manchester to explore the library’s collection and get workshop facilitation training.
How to apply
To apply for UNDERTOW you will need to send us two of your recent poems, a brief CV and two short texts: one about your creative life as a poet, and the other about your interest in multilingual creativity (both max 300 words each.) You can submit in writing or via video.
The deadline is midnight on Sunday, September 8th 2024.
Who can apply
You must be between 18 and 26 years old on the 1st of September 2024
You must self-identify as belonging to a mixed heritage and diaspora background
You must have a relationship with a second language beyond English
You don’t need to be fluent in another language to apply but need to have a relationship with a language beyond English that you can explore via the course. Maybe you speak several languages, or can understand but not speak your parent’s language. You could be learning a language, or exporting the loss of a language tied to your identity. Just make this clear in your application.
Kit Fan
Kit Fan's third poetry collection The Ink Cloud Reader (2023) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize. He is the author of As Slow As Possible (2018) and Paper Scissors Stone (2011). His first novel is Diamond Hill (2021). He reviews regularly for The Guardian and TLS. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Non-Executive Board Director of the Author's Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). www.kitfan.net
UNDERTOW
UNDERTOW is the UK’s first creative development scheme specifically focused on multilingual creativity. English is an additional language for over 20% of primary school children in the UK. Millions of young people live polylingual lives, switching back and forth between languages and cultures. UNDERTOW was created to embrace the massive creative potential in this group and ignite a passion for poetry that runs wild between languages and fosters multilingual creativity.
Tutors and workshop leaders from the past two years include Juana Adcock, the Mexican-British poet and translator, the award-winning poet Inua Ellams, Theresa Cisneros, of the Wellcome Trust, the Turner Prize-winning Array Collective, Tolu Agbelusi, a Nigerian British, poet, playwright, and Victoria Adukwei Bulley, winner of the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize.
Manchester Poetry Library
Manchester Poetry Library (MPL) is the North West’s first public poetry library - open to all. Based at Manchester Metropolitan University, we host a collection of over 14,000 books and recordings profiling 20th and 21st century poets, a growing children’s collection, and a languages collection co-curated with bilingual and multilingual poets. MPL has a year-round learning programme for readers and writers, as well as free events, workshops and an exhibition programme.
Sing Lit Station
Sing Lit Station’s core mission is to serve Singapore’s literary community of writers and readers, through: creating a space for writers to grow their artistic and professional lives, inviting readers to explore our literary culture, and working with many partners to build inclusive and dynamic communities. Sing Lit Station’s flagship programmes include our workshop-for-schools programme Book A Writer, our community challenge / writing forum SingPoWriMo, and our annual Manuscript Bootcamp. Learn more about Singaporean literature through our websites
The Writing Squad
The Writing Squad exists to create the next generation of writers in the North of England. We are a community of artists who make new work together and support each other’s development.