Soul Remains book launch

Cultureword and Manchester Poetry Library are delighted to launch soul remains: Selected new poems 2018-2025 by Firoozeh Fozouni. Firoozeh joined the Multilingual Writing Group at the Poetry Library in 2023 and will be joined by two other members of the group, Ruth Awolola and Liz Gibson. Liz’s first collection, A love the weight of an animal, was launched this summer. Join us for readings and to hear the poets in conversation.

If you are unable to attend in person, you can book onto our remote livestream here.

Firoozeh Fozouni

Poet, artist and musician, Firoozeh Fozouni's first collection in English brings together and explores the kaleidoscope of memories and experiences that come with finding oneself in a new language and culture. The poems in soul remains look inwards to look out, a commentary on the inherently political nature of our most personal experiences and their emotional terrain: strength and vulnerability, tenderness and absurdity. Throughout Fozouni embraces - with us and for us - the difficult work of being alive to ourselves. Firoozeh Fozouni was born and raised in Tehran, and was nurtured in an artistic family environment. Her gateway to the world of art began by learning ballet and the piano, before choosing poetry, painting and the setar as her preferred modes of expression. She has published five collections of poetry in Farsi and her work has been translated into German, French, Spanish and Chinese.

Elizabeth Gibson

Elizabeth Gibson is a Manchester poet, performer, zine-maker, and workshop facilitator whose debut poetry collection is A love the weight of an animal (Confingo, July 2025). They have worked with Manchester Poetry Library, Manchester City of Literature, University of Manchester, Manchester Literature Festival, the Portico Library, and Islington Mill and are currently completing an MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Writing School. https://elizabeth-gibson.com. A love the weight of an animal – Elizabeth Gibson’s first full-length collection of poems – is a love song to Manchester life. Encounters with urban animals – a cormorant, a dead squirrel, caterpillars, swans – open the door to exploring community, body image, mental health, intimacy, and legacy, through a queer and neurodivergent lens. There are intermissions from city life to take hiking trips around the North, from snowy stillness in the Peak District, to feeling the ghost of Anne Lister in Halifax, to walking barefoot to Hilbre Island. Poems take the shape of a belly, a jamjar, a flame, or words meander down into the earth or disperse like music.

Ruth Awolola

Ruth Awolola is a Nigerian Jamaican poet, performer, theatremaker and creative facilitator based in Manchester. In 2015 she was among the winners of the National Youth Slam, Slambassadors UK. She has since performed her work across the UK and internationally, in a variety of different settings including the Hay Literature Festival and the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam. She is an Obsidian Foundation Alum and former Roundhouse Resident Artist. She was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets' Prize 2022.