Episode description

To be alive is to be in conversation with the dead. The ghosts of loved ones are always swirling around us, and sometimes we’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse. In the poem “Three Mangoes, £1,” Kandace Siobhan Walker describes a surprising encounter with her late grandmother at a busy market, and an encounter with a stranger.

Kandace Siobhan Walker is a writer and artist of Jamaican-Canadian, Saltwater Geechee, and Welsh heritage. Her poems have appeared in Magma, The White Review, Poetry Wales, and a number of anthologies. She is the author of the pamphlet Kaleido (Bad Betty, 2022). In 2021, she was both the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and the winner of the White Review Poet’s Prize. In 2019, she won the Guardian 4th Estate BAME short story prize. Cowboy, her debut full-length collection from CHEERIO Publishing, is shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2023.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

We’re pleased to offer Kandace Siobhan Walker’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen back to all our episodes.