Covert 6 workshops - On form and formlessness with Remi Graves

On form and formlessness

This workshop will explore how to imbue the properties of water into your writing. Water offers various metaphors for direction, flow, power and communality that might be fruitful for our writing.

Looking at the work of Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Carl Philips and others, we will explore various themes and modes to write through. How do we decide the form of our writing? Which way is the tide of the poem pulling you?

Together we'll hone ways to sense the shape of our writing desires and to work with (or against) its form accordingly.

This workshop is part of Covert Literary Magazine Issue 6 is Water/Water in People’s Lives. For this issue, we welcome Guest Editors: Roy McFarlane FRSL, Fawzia Kane, Gemma Weekes, Remi Graves and Alinah Azadeh. The editorial team include: Amy Z. Glass, Claire Jacobs, Zita Holbourne FRSA, Jackie Mendoza, and Pauline Rutter.

Location & Access

This event will be online via Zoom. Captions and transcripts will be activated.

BSL interpreters are available upon request. For any questions or requests, please email access@writingourlegacy.org.uk

Who’s this workshop for?

This workshop is open to everyone

About Remi Graves

Remi Graves is a poet and drummer. A former Barbican Young Poet, their work has been commissioned by St Paul’s Cathedral, Arthouse Jersey and BBC Radio 4. They have performed at Tate, Cheltenham Literature Festival and more. Remi has led courses at The Poetry School and facilitates in schools and community spaces across London and the South East. Remi’s debut pamphlet with your chest (2022) was published by fourteen poems. Remi is the winner of 2024 Prototype Prize (short form category), coal was published by Monitor Books in 2025.

About Covert Literary Magazine

Covert Literary Magazine is a yearly publication of literature and visual art for Black, Asian and ethnically diverse writers and artists of colour. The magazine is based in Brighton, UK and was established in 2020. We publish fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, hybrid forms and artwork, with future issues embracing more experimental, journalism and audio visual content. Our aim is to provide a platform for new and underrepresented diverse talent for whom mainstream publishing opportunities are inaccessible, whose work is reviewed, edited and published alongside more established names.

Funders

The Covert Talent Development Programme is part of our Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation programme.

This issue is part of Downs to the Sea, a three-year nature programme that focuses on recovery and resilience in wetland habitats, led by the South Downs National Park Authority and supported by development funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The programme brings together a partnership comprising the South Downs National Park Trust, South Downs National Park Authority, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Western Sussex Rivers Trust, Brighton and Hove City Council and Writing Our Legacy.