Kokumo Rocks – Performance poet

Kokumo will read and perform a selection of her vibrant and intense poems. In 1991 she decided to change the direction of her life following a near-death experience, and began to fulfil her life-long ambition to become a performance poet. Kokumo’s poetry explores the themes of love, race, freedom and imprisonment, which she does with a sense of fun and humour – proud to include ‘the flabby bits’.

From the Scottish countryside to Nigeria, via the metropolitan high street and her childhood experiences, Kokumo paints her world with colour and spirit. Kokumo – the name means ‘this one will not die’ – lives by the motto ‘if you don’t ask you won’t get’, and believes that passion can turn the ‘mundane into excitement’. She has been inspired by poets including Maya Angelou, Benjamin Zephaniah and Ivor Cutler, but above all by ‘growing up black in Scotland’.

“A power of a writer are you.”
Benjamin Zephaniah