The Metic Experience of the Black British Writer

Nick Makoha was a (Creativeworks London) Creative Entrepreneur-in-Residence working alongside Maura Dooley and Professor Joan Anim-Addo at Goldsmiths, University of London to create an in-depth online digital archive of Black Metic Poets. The term ‘Metic’, first used by T S Eliot, translates as foreigners or resident aliens whose allegiances are split between their homeland and their new country.

In detailed interviews Nick has explored how this experience has shaped the lives and work of writers as diverse as Rita Dove, Chris Abani, Terrance Hayes, Elizabeth Alexander, Danez Smith, Kei Miller, Kayo Chingonyi, Malika Booker and Anthony Joseph.

He will explore how investigating the metic experience of poets can develop our writing and career in a hope to de-homogenize the Black Metic experience. We can understand one another as members of a group or society only if we identify. Personal identity is somehow definable in terms of memory.