Poetic justice: black lives and the power of poetry | Books | The Guardian

It was clear to me early on that there are no black editors at any of the larger publishers which have poetry lists. My books were rejected from those major presses, and read in a reductive, isolated way. I kept being told my books were about identity, then I'd read books by white poets, and think, how are these not about identity? I was being told theirs were about nature and philosophy, but mine were also about those things. I wasn't allowed that complexity, just given this unimaginative pathology. I'm proud to be part of the Black Writers' Guild, who are addressing how this racism is systemic in many ways.

Raymond Antrobus