Lesbian poet Joelle Taylor wins TS Eliot poetry prize
mambaonline.comJoelle Taylor (Photo: Roman Manfredi / www.joelletaylor.co.uk) A British lesbian slam poet has won one of the UK’s most prestigious poetry prizes for a collection that focuses on being a butch lesbian in the 1990s. Earlier this month, Joelle Taylor won the £25 000 TS Eliot poetry prize, the UK’s most lucrative, for her book of poems, C+nto & Othered Poems.
In the book, Taylor – who is also the founder of the British youth slam championships, SLAMbassadors – details her experiences of coming of age in the lesbian club scene in Soho, after being rejected by her conventional family.
Its title refers to cunto, a Neapolitan word that means “to tell someone’s story”, but also alludes to the slang word for female genitalia, while the “Othered” makes abundantly clear the poet’s feelings of living as an outsider.
Taylor’s work often features themes of feminism, childhood abuse and rejection because of one’s identity, and C+nto & Othered Poems again draws on autobiographical details, along with the retelling of the stories of others, in order to illustrate the challenges, hatred and violence facing butch lesbians.
