Andre Bagoo

Poet, writer, critic, author of

PITCH LAKE

Photo by Justin Ramcharan

MOST RECENT BOOKS

THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

PITCH LAKE

BURN

WHAT TOWN SAY

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 You will find that you have to read it again; and then, that you want to read it again. Once you have dipped in, it will stick to you, and you will catch fire.

VAHNI CAPILDEO, REVIEWING PITCH LAKE FOR TRINIDAD NEWSDAY

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A manifesto, a literary criticism, a personal chronicle of literary life, a book of days, a stage wherein famous writers such as Walcott, Thomas, Gunn, Espada, and others become actors, The Undiscovered Country discovers many things, but one thing for sure: Andre Bagoo is a fearless, brilliant mind. He can take us from the formal critical perspective to new futurist "visual essay", to verse essay, to sweeping historical account that is unafraid to go as far in time as Columbus and as urgently-of-our moment as Brexit—all of it with precision and attentiveness to detail that is as brilliant as it is startling. Bravo.

ILYA KAMINSKY ON THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY - ESSAYS

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Bagoo’s understated music combines with striking imagery; subtle and various, he explores attachments, delusions, obsessions, hauntings, rituals, griefs and dreams.

MICHAEL LOVEDAY   REVIEWS BURN IN MAGMA

BIO

Photo by Damir Shorab Ali

Andre Bagoo is a Trinidadian poet and writer, author of four books of poems: Trick Vessels, BURN, Pitch Lake and The City of Dreadful Night. His work has appeared in journals such as Boston Review,  Cincinnati Review, St Petersburg Review, POETRY, and The Poetry Review. He was awarded The Charlotte and Isidor Paiewonsky Prize in 2017.

He served as a judge in the 2018 Small Axe Literary Competition and the 2019 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.

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His collection of essays, The Undiscovered Country, is forthcoming from Peepal Tree Press.

NEWS AND EVENTS

•An extract from my poem 'Ibis' appears in the July/August issue of POETRY. 

•For World Poetry Day 2019, I was asked by Dazed and Confused to say what political poetry means to me. Here’s what I said.

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•My 'Behind the Poem' feature for The Poetry Review is up.

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•A recording of my poem ‘The Tourist’ is featured in episode 2 of ChapelFM’s overview of Caribbean poetry selected by Juleus Ghunta. Starts at 08:25. Listen here.

•Interviewed by Paul Brookes as part of The Wombwell Rainbow interview series. The full interview is here. 

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•Interviewed by Breanne Mc Ivor about Robert Lax, the writing life, my latest book and more in Maco People.

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•I interview poet Ishion Hutchinson for the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, coinciding with the inaugural Derek Walcott Festival. Find out more here. 
 

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More updates here.

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