Rachael Boast's Versus Versus anthology launch events
'Versus Versus is an essential read. It is loving and deeply moving. [...] Reflecting diverse voices and experiences, this anthology is a gift – one that demands your time.' – Yomi Ṣode, Poetry Book Society Selector, PBS Bulletin, Summer 2025
Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets, edited by poet and disability advocate Rachael Boast, was published by Bloodaxe Books in May 2025. It was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Summer 2025.
The anthology was launched online with Bloodaxe Books on 22 May, followed by in person events at London's Southbank Centre on 25 October and at Push the Boat Out Festival in Edinburgh on 22 November 2025. Further events will be taking place at festivals around the UK in Spring 2026. Scroll down to see a video of the online launch event and a film of 23 poets from the anthology reading their poems, plus a video of the Southbank Centre livestream.
The anthology brings together poets from the international arena, from emerging voices to world-renowned authors. Most of the work is by contemporary writers – writing in many different styles and from varying traditions – alongside a sampling of historical poets. Also featured are poems translated from Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, German, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, and French Sign Language (linking to a video of a signed performance of Levent Beşkardès’ poem ‘V’).
Particular prominence has been given to poets of the Global Majority, and LGBTQIA2+ poets, who are not only underrepresented within the publishing industry and elsewhere, but whose access to healthcare, provision and support may be inadequate or non-existent for their needs.
Versus Versus presents a wide range of work, from poems which challenge cultural, medical and political agendas and policies, to poems addressing war and the impact of the climate emergency. Alongside these sit poems of love, pain, self-care and companionship, as well as humorous poems and poetry celebrating the natural world.
Versus Versus is supported by the Royal Society of Literature through their 2023 Literature Matters Award.
Rachael Boast is a British writer, editor and disability advocate, navigating Ichthyosis and related conditions. She has published four collections of poetry with Picador, most recently Hotel Raphael (2021). Her anthology Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets was published by Bloodaxe Books in May 2025 and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Summer 2025. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Versus Versus was given an excellent review at the top of The Guardian's poetry books of the month feature in the Saturday magazine of 2 August 2025. Available online here.
'This anthology is a dizzying, continent-crossing explosion of verse, its topics and styles as individual as the poets; revelling in the diversity of a community that is often boxed in by ableism and prejudice. A potent theme of resisting limits courses through the book. [...] In a period in the UK when disabled people’s rights and living conditions are under threat, this collection feels timely.' – Rebecca Tamás, The Guardian (Poetry books of the month)
Versus Versus was well reviewed in Disability Arts Online on 6 May 2025.
'I think this is one of the main remits here – a dialogue between the speaker and the listener, the reader and the writer, the disabled and the non-disabled.’ – Richard Downes, Disability Arts Online
https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/reviews/versus-versus-anthology-of-100-disabled-poets-that-demands-to-be-heard/
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Versus Versus was discussed on BBC Radio 4's The Verb of 19 October 2025. Poet Daniel Sluman was speaking to host Ian McMillan about the anthology.
Available via BBC Sounds. Versus Versus features from 32.17.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002l236
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PAST EVENTS
Saturday 25 October 2025, 2pm, Southbank Centre, London
Global Crip Poetry Celebration
With Rachael Boast, Karthika Naïr, Daniel Sluman, and Lisa Kelly (plus filmed contributions from six other poets from the anthology)
This special in-person launch event held at London's Southbank Centre as part of the London Literature Festival featured poets Karthika Naïr, Daniel Sluman and Lisa Kelly reading their poems and discussing the anthology Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets with editor Rachael Boast. Karthika Naïr began her set by reading a poem by the late GN Saibaba. Karthika Naïr and Daniel Sluman were on the Advocacy and Advisory Panel for the anthology, along with Chisom Okafor.
Interspersed between the live readings were pre-recorded videos from six of the anthology’s contributors, established and emerging, historical and contemporary. There were poems by Levent Beskardes (performed by the author in French sign language), Khairani Barokka, Hàn Mặc Tử (read by the translator N.T. Anh), Andy Jackson, Lateef McLeod and Chisom Okafor.
The event starts at 18:22 on the video of the livestream. The readings and videos were followed by a Q&A with the Southbank Centre audience.
ONLINE LAUNCH FOR VERSUS VERSUS
Thursday 22 May 2025
With Rachael Boast, Karthika Naïr, Chisom Okafor and Daniel Sluman, and filmed contributions from 12 other poets from the anthology
The online launch for Rachael Boast's international anthology Versus Versus: 100 poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets took place on publication day, 22 May 2025. Rachael was joined by the three poets who helped on the book as its Advocacy and Advisory Panel, Karthika Naïr (India/France), Chisom Okafor (Nigeria) and Daniel Sluman (UK), who discussed the anthology with Rachael and also read their poems from the anthology (Karthika read a poem by the late GN Saibaba instead of her own poem).
The event also included film clips of twelve other poets or their translators* reading their poems from Versus Versus: Han Mac Tu * (Vietnam), Kathryn Gray (Wales), Andy Jackson (Australia), Kate Davis (England), Riyad al-Saleh al Hussein * (Syria), Khairani Barokka (Indonesia/UK), Naomi Ortiz (Mexico), Levent Beskardes (Turkey/LSF), Jack Mapanje (Malawi/UK), Jamie Hale (UK), Lateef McLeod (USA) and Nuala Watt (Scotland), with a bonus film from Karl Knights (UK), who read his poem 'A Field Guide to Stares'.
This free Bloodaxe launch event was streamed on YouTube Live and is now available on YouTube below or here: https://youtube.com/live/07usVjBxJo8.
ONLINE COMPILATION VIDEO
Poets from Versus Versus
23 of the poets included in Versus Versus share their poems from the anthology in this compilation of readings from around the world. Poets featured in the video (in order of appearance): Jen Campbell, Ekiwah Adler-Belendez, Karthika Nair, Marilyn Hacker, Kathryn Gray, David Wheatley, Levent Beskardes, Andy Jackson, Lateef McLeod, Cat Chong, Khairani Barokka, Riyad al-Saleh al-Hussein, Chisom Okafor, Jack Mapanje, Karl Knights, Jane Burn, Naomi Ortiz, Han Mac Tu, Iyanuoluwa Adenle, Kate Davis, Daniel Sluman, Jamie Hale & Nuala Watt.
Closed captions are available for this video by clicking the subtitles button at the bottom of the video player.
Rachael Boast is a British writer, editor and disability advocate, navigating Ichthyosis and related conditions. She has published four collections of poetry with Picador, Sidereal (2011), Pilgrim's Flower (2013), Void Studies (2016) and Hotel Raphael (2021). Her poems have been anthologised in Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches, 2017), Staying Human (Bloodaxe Books, 2020) and 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren, 2021).
Karthika Naïr was born with RDEB inversa, a rare disorder of the skin and mucous membranes. Even minor friction – sneezes, handshakes – can result in erosions or blisters resembling third degree burns. When not combating triffids in hospital, she can usually be found around dance studios. Sometimes, that results in books (A Different Distance, The Honey Hunter…), sometimes in dance/theatre productions with colleagues (Beneath the Music, ROOH, Mariposa…). Sometimes, all of the above (Until the Lions). Originally from India, she lives in Paris.
Chisom Okafor is a Nigerian poet and clinical nutritionist, presently living in Alabama where he is an MFA in Creative Writing candidate and Graduate Council Fellow. His poems, which mostly explore his chronic illness, appear in The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, an anthology of disabled and neurodivergent poets (ed. Hannah Soyer) and In-Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers (ed. Rebecca Burke). He has received support from the Sundress Academy for the Arts and Commonwealth Foundation.
Daniel Sluman is a poet and disability rights activist. He co-edited the first major UK Disability poetry anthology, Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and has published three poetry collections with Nine Arches Press. His most recent collection, single window (2021), was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
[16 April 2025]
