Black History Month workshop inspires Kingston students to share their creative writing talent in new poetry book Kindred Spirits

Posted Friday 28 August 2015

A poetry workshop to celebrate Black History Month has been the catalyst to encourage a group of Kingston University students to publish their first book of poetry. The book, Streams of Consciousness, is a compilation of poems by nine students from across Kingston University's five faculties who have collaborated together under the name Kindred Spirits.

Award-winning poets Deanna Rodgers and Sabrina Mahfouz collaborated with the students on some of the pieces, adding their experience to the students' passions. Rui Jaime, a biochemistry student, arranged the original poetry workshop last year and has been instrumental in getting the book published.

"It started as a group of people with little or no experience of writing poetry and we surprised ourselves with what we were capable of creating," Rui said. "It seemed a waste to let all the talent disappear without being seen so we decided to write the book. Deanna and Sabrina heard about it and were so impressed with the writing they asked to be a part of it, which is a huge compliment and endorsement of everyone's work."

Four of the student poets that have contributed to Streams of Consciousness

Streams of Consciousness is available in selected bookshops and an audio version is also due for release this year.

The Union of Kingston Students and the University's Widening Participation Team helped to cover some of the costs of the book's publication. Rui said: "We are very grateful for all the support that the University has given us. This combined with our hard work has culminated in the publication and I'm very proud to be a part of it."