Zena Edwards
For the Love of Music…
and Poetry
If you don’t know, get to know – Jazz Verse Box. It’s the brain child of Jumoke Fashola and last month I was invited to be part of a Jazz Verse Box Event with a special twist of being part of the Brit Jazz Festival. I was billed long with Charlie Dark, Soweto Kinch, Sh’maya and Hollie McNish but COLLABORATED with world class musicians – Simon Wallace on Piano, Winston Clifford on Drums and Davide Mantovani on Bass – who made my poems come aurally to life for me, in the moment, in the true Spirit and Style of Conversation.
Loved it!
Zena Edwards has been involved in performance for 14 years – as a vocalist, poet and stage-manager after graduating from Middlesex University. She has been a performance poet since 1998, performing, professionally and facilitating workshops in poetry and creative writing since 2002. She recently studied at The London International School for Performing Arts.
Raised in Tottenham, North London, Zena has become known as one the most unique voices of performance poet to come out of London and was nominated for the Arts Foundation Award for performance Poetry 2007. She has toured extensively round the UK and Europe supported by the Apples and Snakes poetry organisation, 57 Productions and the British Council and has shared the stage and anthologies with some of her most admired predecessors Linton Kwesi Johnson, Sonia Sanchez, Lemn Sissay, Jean Binta Breeze and Roger Mcgogh.
POETRY
Always experimenting with the margins of language, exploring how human beings listen to and absorb the spoken word, Zena is revered not only for the easy power of her words but also for her opulent delivery, for the complex manipulation of her voice. Her work is deep and sensuous, rhythmic and startling. Her poetry is not simply supported by music, but is music itself.
Published Works : Dance the Guns to Silence: Remembering Ken Saro Wiwa – edited by Kadija George and Nii Akwei Parkes, Velocity: The Best of Apples and Snakes – Black Spring Press, X-magazine, KIN: Commemorative Tour Anthology’ – Renaissance One, 2004