Jessica Mookherjee
Jessica Mookherjee is a poet of Bengali origin. She grew up in Wales and London and now lives in Kent. She has been published in many print and online journals including Agenda, Interpreter’s House, The North, Rialto, Under the Radar and Antiphon, The Moth. Her pamphlets are “The Swell” (TellTale Press 2016) and “Joyride” (BLER Press 2017). Her poems appear in various anthologies including Templar 2016, Eyewear’s Best of British and Irish Poets 2017 and she was highly commended in the 2017 Forward Prize. Her first collection was published by Cultured Llama in 2018 and her second Tigress will be published by Nine Arches in summer 2019.
Mini Interview (2019)
Your poetics?
I am interested in poetry as gaps and crevices - where the unspoken, multiplicity of identities live. My poetry gives voice to these rich and fragmented parts. My poetics is a poetry of witnessing self creation, of becoming.
Your influences?
Dylan Thomas, Ted Hughes, Sharon Olds, John Clare, Anne Carson, TS Eliot, Ravindranath Tagore, Andrew Harvey and an enormous amount of music.
Why is the Matwaala fest and collective relevant and needed?
The experiences of people from multiple identities is interesting - because it reminds us how we merge with each other, how we Carry history inside us and all the songs of the lands we inhabit.
I am interested in poetry as gaps and crevices - where the unspoken, multiplicity of identities live. My poetry gives voice to these rich and fragmented parts. My poetics is a poetry of witnessing self creation, of becoming.
Your influences?
Dylan Thomas, Ted Hughes, Sharon Olds, John Clare, Anne Carson, TS Eliot, Ravindranath Tagore, Andrew Harvey and an enormous amount of music.
Why is the Matwaala fest and collective relevant and needed?
The experiences of people from multiple identities is interesting - because it reminds us how we merge with each other, how we Carry history inside us and all the songs of the lands we inhabit.