Coronet Inside Out: Rachel Long

A Reading from My Darling From The Lions

Rachel Long reads from her beautiful, searching debut collection My Darling from the Lions – published by Picador and shortlisted for this year’s Forward Prize for Best First Collection – in the atmospheric setting of the empty auditorium of The Coronet Theatre. It is razor-sharp poetry that explores race, shame, love and healing that’s in tune with the current times.

“It was a mooring experience to read poems in the half-dark and dappled glamour of an empty Coronet Theatre in the middle of lockdown, in the midst of a global pandemic. Here was a chair, and a book, and a light. The emptiness of the theatre did not feel ominous but much like a blank page — full of potential and hope for the stories and voices that will come to fill it, soon.” – Rachel Long

Rachel is the founder of Octavia Poetry Collective for Womxn of Colour, which is hosted by the Southbank Centre. Her poetry and prose have been widely published, most recently by Mal, Filigree and the White Review. She is Assistant Tutor to Jacob Sam La Rose on the Barbican Young Poets programme, 2015-present.

Click here to see the other work available to watch for free on Coronet Inside Out.

Rachel Long

Rachel Long is a poet and founder of the Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour, which is housed at the Southbank Centre, in London. Her debut collection, My Darling from the Lions, was published by Picador in the UK in 2020 and by Tin House in the US in 2021. My Darling from the Lions was shortlisted for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best First Collection, The Costa Book Award, The Rathbones Folio Prize, and the Jhalak Prize. The US edition of My Darling from the Lions was a New York Times Book Review, and named one of the 100 must-read books of 2021 by TIME.