Sai Murray Credit: Ashley Karrel
Sai Murray is a poet, writer, graphic artist of Bajan/English/Afrikan heritage. The first part of his debut novel, Kill Myself Now –“a truly original voice… an Iced for the corporate man”, is published by Peepal Tree Press and his first volume of poetry Ad-liberation – “wit and joyful engagement with language carries these poems to the heart”, is published September 2013.
Sai has performed, devised and run workshops across the UK and appeared internationally at festivals and venues including: Busboys & Poets (WashingtonDC), Brave New Voices (San Francisco), Mo Juice Poetry Slam (Barbados). A regular collaborator with musicians, Sai is a member of Manchester-based digital arts collective Virtual Migrants and a resident poet at Numbi. His past commissions have included: poet in residence (together with Dorothea Smartt) for C Words; lead artist on the Re-Membering project, 2010; and FWords: Creative Freedom, 2008.
Credit: Martin LeSanto-Smith
As a youth poet coach, Sai has helped produce, develop and promote several UK slam initiatives and has successfully coached winning teams at Leeds Young Authors Voices of a New Generation (2009, 2010, 2012) and at the largest ever UK national slam, Shake the Dust. He is currently a founding poet facilitator (together with Zena Edwards) on Platform’s youth arts and campaigning project, Shake!; creative writing facilitator/mentor with mental health arts charity, Artists in Mind; arts and politics editor of Sable Lit Mag; and artistic director of Scarf magazine.
Through his work as creative director of Liquorice Fish, Sai also helps produce, edit and publish books, anthologies, resources and events for a select number of grassroots community organisations.
HUMBLED IN THE BACK OF A BROOKLYN TAXI
somewhere between
the jubilation of performing our first New York gig
in front of two paying guests
and the reverie of an upstate library reading
in front of friends, family, strangers
the taxi driver mentions that
he too is a poet
somewhere between
the Jewish quarter with trench-coated men
patrolling the streets with beards, black hat UFO’s
and submachine guns
their women pushing prams
in the surreal twilight,
the taxi driver tells us
he was once on Def Poetry Jam
somewhere between
our failed attempt to find a jazz club
and our much-needed beds
we find a bar
buy the taxi driver a drink
and the taxi driver drops a poem.
he thanks us.
we thank the taxi driver more.
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