Momtaza Mehri
Momtaza Mehri is an award-winning poet and essayist. She is a former Young People’s Poet Laureate for London and winner of the 2019 Manchester Writing Prize. Her writing has featured in the Guardian, POETRY, Granta, Wasafiri, Bidoun, The White Review and on BBC Radio 4. She works across criticism, translation, anti-disciplinary research practices, education and radio. Bad Diaspora Poems is the winner of an Eric Gregory Award and the 2023 Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Photograph © Ndrika Anyika
Momtaza Mehri on Granta.com
Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition
Universal Mother
Momtaza Mehri
‘I turn to O’Connor’s music when I get tired of lying to myself. Her songs are allegorical free-falls. Spiritual chiaroscuros, even.’
Momtaza Mehri on Sinéad O’Connor.
In Conversation | The Online Edition
In Conversation
m nourbeSe philip & Momtaza Mehri
‘I think the stories that cannot yet be told must be told, can only be told, by un-telling.’
Momtaza Mehri in conversation with m nourbeSe philip.
Poetry | The Online Edition
Two Poems
Momtaza Mehri
‘Rub my scalp and tell me who I could have been. / Feed me a morsel or two.’
Two poems by Momtaza Mehri.
In Conversation | The Online Edition
In Conversation
Momtaza Mehri & Warsan Shire
Momtaza Mehri and Warsan Shire talk about nineties London, parentification and diasporic inheritances.
In Conversation | The Online Edition
Podcast | Momtaza Mehri
Momtaza Mehri
We discuss her collection, Doing the Most with the Least, on the Granta Podcast.
‘don’t be / shocked when I say I was in prison you’re still in prison that’s / what this land means prison.’
Poetry | Issue 144
Though I Have Never Been to Ostia, I Have Seen the Place Where Our Dreams Died
Momtaza Mehri
‘like pasolini’s dream of an african oresteia let us be ridiculous’
Poetry | Issue 144
Biscotti Boys / On Men Who Wear Living as Loosely as Their Suits
Momtaza Mehri
‘salmaan the second son & his mama’s seventh seal by way of underwater & underemployment’
