Creative Midlands Events

Poetry Parnassus: poet Kosal Khiev is released after being detained at UK airport.

Posted: 29 Jun 2012 02:52 AM PDT

On Thursday 5th July Writing West Midlands and Stratford Poetry Festival are hosting one of the Southbank Centre's Poetry Parnassus events which feature poets from Olympic nations. Kosal Khiev is one of them.

Kosal Khiev is turning out to be one of the stars of The Southbank Centre's Poetry Parnassus tour. The poet and tattoo artist Kosal Khiev was born in a Thai refugee camp. In the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge war he fled with his family to the USA. At the age of 16 he was arrested in a gang fight, charged with attempted murder and tried as an adult. While serving 14 years in a state penitentiary he was introduced to spoken word poetry by a Vietnam War veteran. Up[on his release in 2011 he was deported to Cambodia, a country he had never been to. He lives in exile in Phnom Penh. You can read his fascinating story here.

When Kosal arrived in the UK on 23 June (with all paperwork intact), he was detained and taken to Colnbrook Refugee Immigration Centre, where he is due to give a poetry performance today (29 June). Finally released many hours later, Kosal is free to get on with the business of poetry.

See videos of his experiences here and here.

For a video of the Southbank's 'rain of poems', see here.

If you needed another reason to come to the Stratford Poetry Festival, the promise of an evening with Kosal and Botswanan poet T J Dema should surely be it.

Event Details Here

Creative Midlands