Hello and welcome to my website.
I was born in London but grew up mostly in Ethiopia, where my father worked at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa.
I have been writing poems off and on since I was about 12 years old, then many years later I won first prize in the Poetry London competition 2001 and second prize in Chroma 2006.
My poems have been published in some great poetry magasines such as Ambit, Envoi, Magma, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry London, Rialto, Seam, Smiths Knoll, Stand, The North, The Wolf and Wasafiri.
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My first collection of poems, The Dog Who Thinks He’s a Fish (Smith/Doorstop Books), came out in 2004 and was described by Moniza Alvi as ‘a rare delight’.
My new collection, Ethiopia Boy, is based around a series of celebrations and elegies for my wonderful childhood friend Abebe, and is due from Carcanet Oxford Poets in spring 2013.
I have also translated some brilliant poems by the popular young Ethiopian poet and novelist, Bewketu Seyoum, some of which appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation (The Big Green Issue, Oct 2008). I am currently working on translating more of Bewketu's and other Ethiopian poets' work, as well as some of the later poems of Aimé Césaire, the great Martinican author of Cahier d'un retour au pays natal.