Bio

Kayo Chingonyi was born in Zambia in 1987 and came to the UK in 1993. He studied English Literature at The University of Sheffield where he completed an undergraduate dissertation on the work of Saul Williams and co-founded a poetry and music event series called Word Life.

His poems are published in City Lighthouse (Tall-Lighthouse, 2009), The Shuffle Anthology (Shuffle Press, 2009), Verbalized (British Council, 2010), Paradise By Night (Booth-Clibborn Editions 2010), Clinic II (Egg Box Publishing, 2011), The Best British Poetry 2011 (Salt Publishing, 2011) and The Salt Book of Younger Poets (Salt Publishing, 2011).

Chingonyi has performed his work across the UK at such venues and events as London Literature Festival, The Big Chill, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The University of Bradford and Buckingham Palace and internationally at State Theatre of South Africa (Pretoria), New Space Theatre (Cape Town) and Museum Africa (Johannesburg).

As a creative writing tutor he has devised and delivered workshops for The National Theatre, London School of Economics, Royal Shakespeare Company, YMCA, Poetry Society and Apples and Snakes as well countless schools, youth centres and writer’s groups across the UK.  As well as verse, Kayo leads workshops in collaborative practice, life writing, fiction, song lyrics and performance skills.

He is an emerging writer-in-residence at Kingston University and his first pamphlet of poems, Some Bright Elegance, is available from Salt Publishing.

Testimonials:

‘Rolls Royce writing’ – Kwame Dawes (Emmy and Forward Prize winning writer and critic)

‘Chingonyi is always compelling’ – Sheffield Forge

‘The poems published here demonstrate Chingonyi’s craft and his attention to the formal aspects of poetry on the page as well as to the spoken word’ – Sarah Ream, Poetry International Web

‘Kayo weighs each vowel and syllable as if it’s a thing of beauty, which it is, even when the words themselves are breaking your heart’ – Apples and Snakes

‘The highlight of the evening was the set by Kayo Chingonyi[...]. Combining lyrical prowess and rhythm, his poetry is tinged with his experience of MCing. Kayo gave a performance which captivated the spectators and left them in awe’ – Sheffield Steel Press