Agen Bien Fou
An elegiac and politically charged collection confronting oppression, imperialism, war, grief, cultural survival and the defiant possibilities of resistance.
Books and publications
Writing
Poetry that moves through diaspora, myth, philosophy, ecology, language and the fault lines of the contemporary world.
New collections
Published in 2026
Three collections accompany the national tour.
Reclamations: Disregard Prior Prompt
A collection confronting authorship, instruction and ownership, reclaiming language from the forces that seek to automate, narrow or control it.
26 Poems for Cash
A collaborative collection by Samatar Elmi and Sam Telford: twenty-six poems shaped by exchange, precarity, friendship and the strange economies surrounding creative work.
Earlier collections
Previous books
The books that established the work.
The Epic of Cader Idris
Elmi’s debut full-length collection brings hip-hop’s music into conversation with British myth, Somali oral history, philosophy and the lived experience of diaspora. The collection includes the poem that won the 2021 Geoffrey Dearmer Prize.
Portrait of Colossus
A searingly forthright debut pamphlet exploring migration, multilingualism, race, family, religion and masculinity. Selected as a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice.
Current projects
Writing and theatre
Forthcoming poetry and a recent theatre R&D.
Our Eyes Are Crystal Balls
A forthcoming collection.
Nightmares
Ekphrastic Meditations on Honoria Brown’s “Nightmares” Series, co-written with Honoria Brown and Will Moorfoot.
After Cordelia
A stage reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear commissioned by Fio Theatre, successfully developed through two scratch performances at Chapter Arts Centre, directed by Mathilde Lopez.
Selected record
Featured in
Selected journal and anthology appearances, with the original publications shown at a consistent scale.
Poetry, The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Magma and Iota.
This is a selected record rather than a complete bibliography.
Geoffrey Dearmer Prize winner, Obsidian Fellow and associate poetry editor at flipped eye press.
For a publication-ready bibliography and credentials list, download the press kit.
Open the press kit