Anthony Vahni Capildeo - Reading & Conversation with Selina Guinness

We are thrilled that the truly remarkable Anthony Vahni Capildeo is able to join us for our 2026 festival. Capildeo is an acclaimed Trinidadian/Scottish poet and writer of non-fiction, and Professor at the University of York. With the most beautiful understanding and love for natural heritage, they have served as guest editor of a special ecopoetics issue of Stand magazine. A rare and highly original talent, their genre-defying work has captured the attention of both readers and scholars across the globe.

Their many awards include the prestigious Forward Poetry Prize for best collection, the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry, the Windham-Campbell Prize and the Saltire National Poetry Award. Anthony Vahni Capildeo’s last poetry collection Polkadot Wounds was published to widespread acclaim and they arrive in Ireland hot on the heels of their non-fiction debut, Masqueraders: Selected Essays, published in July 2026.

Writer and academic Selina Guinness is also a sheep farmer from neighbouring Tibradden with a deep interest in heritage around traditional farming methods. A long-time friend of Anthony Capildeo’s, this should prove to be an extraordinary and illuminating event.

‘Anthony Vahni Capildeo is among the most original and vital poets writing today. Capildeo’s poetic language is its own creature, a bestiary, fierce and tender, generous and resilient… The poems demonstrate again and again how attention can be an act of radical hospitality.’
Tiffany Atkinson