Leeds Lit Fest presents an event offering unmissable readings by and an in-conversation between poets Emily Zobel Marshall and Adam Lowe, both of whom have debut collections with powerhouse publisher Peepal Tree Press.

Marshall’s Bath of Herbs explores the complexity of mixed-race, hybrid identities and relationships to the English and Welsh mountains, fells, rivers and shorelines from an ‘othered’, unmappable, positionality. As well as an exploration of having and negotiating multiple identities, it is also a love letter to family and the importance of making and shaping your own creative path through language, reflection and action.

Lowe’s Patterflash is a PBS Recommendation, receiving acclaim from The Big Issue and featuring on BBC radio and as a collection of poems, it displays a variety of language registers, ' high' and ' low' in tone and sometimes making use of Polari, the gay street language that simultaneously reveals and conceals, excludes and invites, estranges and makes familiar.

Both authors explore their mixed and Caribbean heritages and the reflections and conversation will include reflections on race, intersectionality, the transformation of LGBTQ+ and mixed race identities over time, the value of wordplay for autonomy and navigating spaces, and art and poetry as resistance.