Dzifa Benson Launch Readings
'This is an amazing collection, not only for a debut but for a poet at any stage. It’s versatile and virtuosic, experimental and moving, complex and culturally important.' – Bernardine Evaristo
Dzifa Benson's debut poetry collection Monster is a bold and lyrical exploration of the Black female body as a site of oppression and resistance. At its heart is a brilliantly imagined study of the world of Sarah Baartman, aka the Hottentot Venus, a Khoikhoi woman from South Africa who was displayed in freak shows in 19th-century Europe. In her multi-faceted, highly inventive title-sequence Dzifa Benson frames Baartman’s voice within the social, political and legal structures of the day.
Other poems draw clear parallels with Benson’s own experience as a Black woman born in London but raised in Ghana who returned to the UK at the age of 18. The collection is an exciting mix of vivid lyricism, sometimes laced with dark humour, using complex poetry, monologue and theatrical devices. The influence of Shakespeare sits comfortably with references to Ewe mythology and history in a collection of wide scope and depth.
Dzifa Benson was born in London to Ghanaian parents and grew up in Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. She is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose work intersects science, art, technology, the body and ritual which she explores through poetry, prose, theatre, libretto, performance, curation, visual arts, immersive technologies, essays and criticism. Her poetry has been widely anthologied and recognised with fellowships from Jerwood Compton Poetry and Hedgebrook. She was shortlisted for the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize in 2021. Her first collection, Monster, was published by Bloodaxe Books on 24 October 2024. Dzifa has toured South Africa and the UK with the British Council, is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and holds a Masters degree in Text & Performance from RADA and Birkbeck. She lives in London.
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Carol Rumens featured ‘The Hottentot Venus Hails Botticelli's on the High Seas' from Dzifa Benson’s Monster in her online Poem of the Week column in The Guardian on 21 October 2024. The poem was accompanied by Carol’s perceptive and sensitive commentary. Read here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/poemoftheweek
'For the multimedia poet and dramatist Dzifa Benson, Baartman and her story are central among the minds, bodies and cultures she examines in her first collection, Monster. The impressive title sequence demonstrates how biography can be transformed into poetry without sacrifice either of poetry or realism.' – Carol Rumens, Poem of the Week, The Guardian
‘The tactile language and eclectic techniques take the breath away, with the book featuring playlets, remixes of quotes from Enlightenment thinkers such as Descartes, even a poem layered on to a reproduction of a fragment of a genome. Imaginative, rigorous and playful, this is a showstopper of a debut.’ – Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian (Poetry Books of the Month)
‘Historical figures inspired two distinctive debuts: Elizabeth I’s court magician John Dee is ventriloquised with dizzying wordplay in Camille Ralphs’s metaphysical After You Were, I Am (Faber); while Dzifa Benson’s impressive Monster (Bloodaxe) finds belated justice for the “Hottentot Venus” Sarah Baartman, a Khoekhoe woman brought to 19th-century London and displayed as a curiosity.’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph (The best poetry books of 2024)
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Friday 14 February, 4pm
Workshop: Turning Movement into Poetry
Verve Poery Festival (Birmingham Hippodrome)
Dzifa Benson, whose debut collection Monster was published in October, will be leading a workshop titled 'Turning Movement into Poetry', channeling the work of choreographer and dance theorist Rudolf Laban.
Tickets: £24.50 / £18.50. Book online here.
Friday 14 February, 8.30pm
Verve Poetry Festival: Friday Headline Event
Birmingham Hippodrome (and online)
Dzifa be reading alongside Anthony Joseph and Richard Scott, hosted by Helen Bowell.
Tickets: £10 in-person / £8 online. Tickets available here.
PAST EVENTS
Bloodaxe Books October online launch event - Monday 21 October 2024
Bloodaxe hosted this launch reading by Dzifa Benson, Nia Davies and Helen Ivory celebrating the publication of our October 2024 titles. All three poets read live and discussed their work with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley. Watch via YouTube below.
POEM VIDEO
Dzifa Benson: 'Self-portrait as a Creature of Numbers'
Dzifa Benson reads her poem 'Self-portrait as a Creature of Numbers' from the Bloodaxe anthology Staying Human at Oxford House in London in 2020 on the eve of the second national lockdown. This poem is included in Monster.
[21 October 2024]
