Tishani Doshi UK & Ireland Tour: May-June 2026
'Egrets, While War draws on everything from myth and family history to the metaverse, to create a word-weather, a landscape of individual imagery which we apprehend on our skin. An original and sensory exploration of beauty and loss in the environment and in the body.' – Imtiaz Dharker
Poet, novelist and dancer Tishani Doshi's fifth collection Egrets, While War is published by Bloodaxe Books in May 2026. This new collection is a lyric field guide to grief and resilience, where attention becomes a form of devotion, and intimacy, a quiet resistance.
The poems in Egrets, While War navigate the deep entanglements between environmental loss, ancestral memory, the slow transformations of ageing, and the devastations of war. Birds appear throughout these pages, not simply as subjects but as symbols and messengers, witnesses to war, extinction and exile. Mythic birds from the Ramayana fly alongside city pigeons and wild peacocks, forming a living archive of flight and disappearance. Here, love and desire emerge not as consolation, but as a form of radical presence – one of the last ways we remain tethered to the world. With lyric clarity and a gaze both wide and precise, Egrets, While War becomes a meditation on survival – of species, of history, of the heart.
'In Egrets, While War, grief and beauty share the same open palm – egrets lifting through smoke, mythic birds guiding ancestry through the present – and her incandescent poems insist that attention itself is a form of love. Even as war and extinction press close, Doshi keeps turning us toward astonishment, toward the tender fact of being alive together in a world that is breaking and still unbearably radiant.' – Aimee Nezhukumatathil
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Tishani launched her fourth collection A God at the Door with a series of virtual readings organised by UK and Irish festivals. She read at StAnza, Mountains to Sea, Cardiff Poetry Festival and Cúirt International Festival of Literature ahead of UK publication on 22 April 2021, and at Swindon Festival of Literature in May. A video of her joint online Bloodaxe launch event on 20 April 2021 can be seen below, along with a stunning filmed reading she made for the Coronet Inside Out series.
In 2018 Tishani toured the UK and Ireland with readings and dance/spoken word performances for her third collection Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The collection and her accompanying dance performance were shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2018.
Her previous two collections were Everything Begins Elsewhere, published by Bloodaxe in 2012, and her debut, Countries of the Body (Aark Arts) winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her second novel, Small Days and Nights (Bloomsbury, 2019) was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. A God at the Door was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2021. Tishani Doshi was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in July 2023.
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Three new poems by Tishani Doshi have been featured online on Wasafiri Magazine's website ahead of publication of the Bloodaxe edition of Egrets, While War. The two sonnets are included in the UK edition, and the third poem 'Monsieur Tout-Le-Monde', will be included in the US and Indian editions, which are published later in 2026. Read the feature here.
Poetry London published an exclusive online conversation between Tishani Doshi and Michael Symmons Roberts. The two poets discussed one another's work and shared themes in their new collections. The conversation is online here.
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FORTHCOMING UK & IRELAND TOUR: 23 MAY TO 28 JUNE 2026
Tishani Doshi will be on tour in the UK and Ireland to launch her fifth collection Egrets, While War.
At some of the events she will be performing a dance piece which she has created especially for this book. A short trailer can be seen on YouTube here.
Tuesday 19 May, 7pm BST, online launch event
Joint online launch event for new May titles by Tishani Doshi, Patricia Smith and Jennifer Lee Tsai. All three poets will be celebrating the publication of their new books by reading live and discussing their work with each other and with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
This free Bloodaxe launch event will be streamed on YouTube Live on this YouTube page: https://youtube.com/live/4x0gzWrAClU
Watch live or later via YouTube.
Saturday 23 May, 8.30pm
Hay Festival
Tishani Doshi and Len Pennie: Poems of Protest
An evening showcasing the best in contemporary poetry with award-winning poets Tishani Doshi and Len Pennie. Doshi performs a new piece combining poetry and moving image. Her new collection Egrets, While War is a lyric guide to grief and resilience, examining environmental loss, ancestral memory and more, with birds appearing throughout as subjects, symbols and messengers.
Pennie, who writes in both Scots and English, brings her charismatic presence and powerful Scots language delivery. She presents work from poyums annaw, a defiant and trailblazing collection of work that tackles ideas of patriarchy, gender-based violence and injustice.
Price: £16.00 - more details and booking here
The poem ‘After the Anthropause’ from Egrets, While War was commissioned by the Hay Festival 2021.
Saturday 30 May, 4pm-4.50pm: Jaipur Literature Festival, Dublin
Edmund Burke Theatre - Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin
Egrets, While War: Poetry in Motion
Tishani Doshi will be giving a dance performance she has created for her fifth collection Egrets, While War. Followed by a conversation with Claire Power, Director of Poetry Ireland.
Sunday 31 May, 5pm-5.50pm
Past, or Passing, or to Come: The Poetic Imagination
Jeet Thayil, Nikita Gill, Tishani Doshi and Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe in performance, introduced by Claire Power, Director of Poetry Ireland.
Thursday 4 June, 7:30pm, The Coronet Theatre, London
Poetry Club with Tishani Doshi, Isabelle Baafi and Asmaa Azaizeh
June’s edition of Poetry Club is an evening of readings from three compelling voices in contemporary poetry: Tishani Doshi, Asmaa Azaizeh and Isabelle Baafi. Moving between questions of conflict, identity and belonging, intimate histories and acts of personal transformation, their work explores how language bears witness to the pressures of our time.
Tishani Doshi will be reading from her fifth collection Egrets, While War.
Tickets: £16. More details and bookings:
https://www.thecoronettheatre.com/whats-on/poetry-club-4-june-26/
Jaipur Literature Festival: London
Tishani Doshi will be taking part in two events at the twelfth edition of JLF London. The Library once again comes into colourful life, with talks, panels and more across three venues, as speakers and writers from around the world discuss everything from art to literature, history to science, food to film, international politics to sustainability.
Sunday 7 June, 11.15am-12.15pm
Pigott Theatre, British Library (and online)
Performance: Egrets, While War
Tishani Doshi will be giving a dance performance she has created for her fifth collection Egrets, While War. Followed by a conversation with Nikita Gill.
Booking information here.
Thursday 18 June, Manchester Writing School Summer Festival
Tishani Doshi will be taking part in the Manchester Writing School Summer Festival.
Details to follow.
Saturday 20 June, 5.30pm: Dalkey Book Festival, Ireland
Town Hall, Dalkey
Tishani Doshi: Egrets, While War
Tishani will be returning to Dalkey Book Festival with her fifth collection Egrets, While War. She will perform her new piece combining dance, poetry and moving image.
More information & bookings here.
Sunday 28 June, 8.30pm-9.30pm, Ledbury Poetry Festival
Market Theatre, Herefordshire
Tishani Doshi & Anthony Joseph
Tishani Doshi will perform her new piece combining dance, poetry and moving image.
PAST READINGS AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE
Tuesday 20th July 2021, 6pm to 7pm, GemArts Masala Festival & Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts
'A God at the Door': Tishani Doshi reading and in conversation with John Challis
Award-winning poet and dancer, Tishani Doshi gave an online reading for NCLA and the GemArts Masala Festival on 20 July 2021. Born in Madras, India, Tishani is of Welsh-Gujarati descent and has published four collections of poetry and two novels. Her first collection, Countries of the Body, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and her most recent novel, Small Days and Nights (Bloomsbury, 2019), was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize.
Tishani was reading from her fourth collection, A God at the Door (Bloodaxe, 2021), a collection of poems that bestows power on the powerless, deploys beauty to heal trauma, and enables the voices of the oppressed to be heard with piercing clarity. From flightless birds and witches, to black holes and Marilyn Monroe, A God at the Door illuminates with lines and images that surprise, inflame and dazzle.
After her reading, Tishani was in conversation about her poetry with John Challis, Research Associate at Newcastle University, and author of The Resurrectionists (Bloodaxe, 2021). A fascinating and deeply thoughtful discussion. A video of this hour-long event is below.
Tishani Doshi in conversation with John Challis at the GemArts Masala Festival on 20 July 2021
Tishani was reading from her Forward Prize-shortlisted collection A God at the Door and was in conversation with fellow Bloodaxe poet John Challis. 'Poems are so small but they have the possibility to work with such incredible scale' – Tishani Doshi
Wednesday 28 April 2021, Coronet Inside Out series, Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill, London
For Coronet Inside Out poet, novelist and dancer Tishani Doshi recorded these poems from Kodaikanal, a hill station in Tamil Nadu, from her fourth collection, A God at the Door, published by Bloodaxe Books on 22 April 2021. She says:
‘What I love about the Coronet is its sense of intimacy and other-worldliness. When you pass through the doors — whether it’s into the bar or to the theatre, there’s a sense of crossing over a threshold and entering into a different space – where you are connected with strangers, where transformations can happen. Most of the poems in my fourth collection, A God at the Door (Bloodaxe), have to do with this idea of connection and intimacy. For me the two touchstones are language and the body, the idea that any pilgrimage must lead back to ourselves, our bodies, but that we are in this together. Poems are bridges, they can connect our personal losses to public grief, they can also offer glimpses of beauty, humour & hope.’ – Tishani Doshi
Tuesday 20 April 2021, Bloodaxe Books poetry online, joint launch with Tishani Doshi, Dom Bury & Jenna Clake
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Poet and dancer Tishani Doshi toured the UK and Ireland in 2018 with readings and dance/spoken word performances for her third collection Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She devised the twenty-minute dance piece herself, and performed it to a recording of her reading the title poem (see film below). Tishani danced for many years with the renowned choreographer Chandralekha, with whom she performed internationally.
Tishani Doshi kicked off her UK & Irish tour with an interview on Radio 4's Front Row on Monday 21 May 2018. Listen here.
Read an interview with Tishani on the Bookanista website here.
Tishani Doshi dances Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods at the Dylan Thomas Birthplace
Tishani Doshi performs her dance version of ‘Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods’ in the Dylan Thomas Birthplace, Swansea, in July 2018. Filmed by Gareth M Davies (www.seebehindthemoon.com). Poem read by her with music composed by Luca Nardon (www.lucanardon.it).
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Tishani Doshi was guest on Radio 3's The Verb recorded at the Hay Festival, where she read in May 2022. The Verb at Hay was broadcast on 3 June at 10pm. Listen here.
Tishani was featured in Ars Notoria, along with three poems from her fourth collection A God at the Door. Illustrated with photos of Tishani dancing the piece she devised to accompany her 2018 Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods tour. Read the Poet of Honour feature here.
Ahead of her event at Mountains to Sea Festival on 27 March 2021, Tishani shared her Life in Books with Ireland's Sunday Independent. Read the feature here.
Tishani Doshi was interviewed on the BBC World Service's The Cultural Frontline on 27 March about the interplay between dance and poetry in her creative work. Listen here (2nd item).
A God at the Door was reviewed in The Guardian's best recent poetry round-up for April 2021 here and in the Times Literary Supplement's poetry round-up here.
Two stunning shaped poems from the collection were featured in Bookanista here to mark publication on 22 April 2021.
Tishani's poem 'Species' from A God at the Door was read and discussed by Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama on the US Poetry Unbound podcast of 8 October 2021. Listen here.
[08 April 2026]
