POETRY
Casey Bailey is the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020-2022. He is a writer, performer and educator born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham. Casey has written the following poetry books:
‘From This Soil’ (2023) - Poetry Pamphlet - Broken Spine
‘Please Do Not Touch’ (2021) - Poetry Collection - Burning Eye Books
‘Adjusted’ (2018) - Poetry Collection - Verve Poetry Press
‘Waiting at Bloomsbury Park’ (2017) - Poetry Pamphlet - Big White Shed
Casey has performed nationally and internationally, spent some time on a residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and taught, facilitated and led up and down the country.
Casey’s poetry has appeared in a number of places, including the following anthologies:
Part of a Story That Started Before Me - Penguin
Second Place Rosette: Poems About Britain – The Emma Press.
Eighty Four: Poems on Male Suicide, Vulnerability, Grief and Hope – Verve Poetry Press
Tipton Tales – Multistory.
Casey has been commissioned by various organisations, including:
The BBC
Town Hall Symphony Hall
Birmingham Civic Society
West Midlands Combined Authority
The Local Government Association
“Please Do Not Touch is a beautifully shattering collection. How delicately it unstitches small and personal disasters on the page. How Casey flattens Birmingham and soak our hands into its soil so we too feel it’s warmth, it’s grit, the seeds that may still germinate one day. Wow.”
“Adjusted is a brave, full-bodied, sweet textured first collection from Casey, filled with ‘the little fragments of broken people.’ There is a powerful emotional bind to these poems, sincerity and beauty, the wide-eyed joy for things new and the hope for a better future./ The joys and sleepless nights of fatherhood and I Want My Mom will make you cry. Yes this book cries tears, ‘tears of pain, tears of grief, tears of blood, tears of shame’ and you will cry too. ”