Indonesia — UK Poetry Exchange
In celebration of the Year of Indigenous Languages, the British Council facilitated six poets to participate in a unique and enriching cultural exchange between the UK and Indonesia. Focussing on their ‘mother tongues’, the poets — Mario F. Lawi, Jamil Massa, Irma Agryanti, Rufus Mufasa, Roseanne Watt, and William (Billy) Letford — attended and performed at the Makassar International Writers Festival (MIWF), where they learned about each other’s native languages and the ways this informed their creative practice. The poets reconnected later that September in Hull, performing at the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival 2019. The project concluded with the launch of a pamphlet of poetry inspired by the experience, titled I am Both Stranger and of This Place, published by Wrecking Ball Press.
