C+nto: & Othered Poems - Paperback

by Joelle Taylor (Author)

WINNER OF THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE 2021

The female body is a political space.

C+nto enters the private lives of women from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the protests they led in the '90s to reclaim their bodies as their own - their difficult balance between survival and self-expression. History, magic, rebellion, party and sermon vibrate through Joelle Taylor's cantos to uncover these underground communities forged by women.

Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto is a love poem, a riot, a late night, and an honouring.

Back Jacket

The female body is a political space.

C+nto enters the private lives of women from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the protests they led in the '90s to reclaim their bodies as their own - their difficult balance between survival and self-expression. History, magic, rebellion, party and sermon vibrate through Joelle Taylor's cantos to uncover these underground communities forged by women.

Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto is a love poem, a riot, a late night, and an honouring.

Author Biography

Joelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright
and author. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Saboteur Spoken
Word Artist of the Year (2022), Taylor is the host and co-curator of
Out-Spoken, the UK's premier poetry and music club, currently resident at the
Southbank Centre. A former UK slam champion, she founded SLAMbassadors, the
UK's youth slam championships, in 2001 and was its Artistic Director and
National Coach until 2018. Taylor is the author of three plays, a forthcoming
novel and four poetry collections, including C+nto & Othered
Poems, which won the 2021 T. S. Eliot Prize and was longlisted
for the 2021 Ondaatje Prize. Her documentary Butch was recently featured on BBC Radio 4.