Poetry / Sukina Noor
Sukina Noor’s first poem as Bristol City Poet
Since being announced as the fifth Bristol City Poet in the autumn of 2024, Sukina Noor has been exploring the twin themes of homecoming and belonging.
She has visited her two former schools, Montpelier High and Fairfield High, where she has facilitated poetry workshops around these ideas – inviting students to think about what Bristol means to them.
Working with Bristol Drugs Project, Noor has also hosted a workshop series over five weeks, which culminated in a spring community showcase at Unitarian Hall.
Sukina Noor facilitating a poetry workshop with Bristol Drugs Project – photo: Sukina Noor
Her collaborations have extended to groups in two of Bristol’s ‘twinned’ cities – Porto in Portugal, and Beira in Mozambique, with cultural exchanges planned, in partnership with Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival.
Lyra itself is launching on April 25, with Noor set to perform new work on the opening weekend of the festival, alongside Harry Baker.
She will be running a workshop on Poetry and Resistance at Arnolfini the following weekend – in response to the Raise the Bar poetry exhibition that is currently on display, and appearing on the judging panel for the coveted Lyra Bristol Poetry Slam Finals.
Sukina Noor was selected as the new city poet by a panel of five judges representing different cultural institutions in Bristol – photo: Sukina Noor
Later in the spring, Noor will be delivering keynote speeches at the University of Bristol, as well as at Bristol City of Sanctuary, and will be introducing more community initiatives and projects over the next 18 months, during which she will be publishing nine more poems.
However, the first of the 10 to be produced during her tenure as Bristol City Poet has now been released. It was “a poem of curiosity,” she recalls.
“I hadn’t started any of my projects or workshops around the city so didn’t know where to start, other than to explore what it means to be the Bristol City Poet. This poem is a poetic inquiry into what it means to be the voice, soul or heart of the city.” Noor has kindly agreed for Bristol24/7 to publish that poem here.
Sukina Noor in performance – photo: Words of Colour/Raise the Bar
A Poet in Pursuit of the Soul of Her City
They said the City Poet
Is supposed to be
The voice of the city
One who listens deeply
To the city as it breathes
But where do I place my ear
To hear its heartbeat?
Stapleton Road
Stokes Croft
Park Street?
Where do I place a plaster
If my city starts to bleed?
Where do I lay hands
When a healing touch
Is what she needs?
Where do I go to hear Bristol speak?
Should I pull up a seat
Overlooking the harbour?
Are my answers to be found
Within the ripples of the water?
Should I frequent
Open Mic nights
Where hearts burst
Through poetic verse?
Or could it be that Bristol
Could speak through me?
Secrete her secret into the core of me
So that when I open my mouth
Bristol’s soul seeps out.
If I want to see my city’s spirit
Should I turn my face skywards?
Seeking signs in the sky
And shapes in the clouds.
Can what I seek be found
My back held by the ground
Of Queen Square
Or Ashton Court
Or Castle Park
Gazing at balloons gliding by
Like confetti across our summer skyline
When our city is
All hot and sticky
All lush and pretty.
How do I tune into the soul of my city
Captures its exhales and cloak it with words?
How do I listen deeply to the stories
Stored in the darkness of the Earth?
How do we remember memories
That are no longer spoken?
Where do I go to gather
The parts of Bristol that are broken
And invite them
To sit at the table
And be part of the conversation?
To be the City Poet
Is to take a voyage
To the core of us
Listen deeply to the wounds
And hold space for the wondrous.
It is to find magic in the mundane
Witness her underbelly
And harbour no judgement.
Learning to love this city
Despite the bruises
Knowing it is wounded
And imperfect
And flawed
With a problematic past
But a promising future.
It is a process of becoming one
Within the multiplicity
Distilling the sounds of the city
Into some kind of symphony
Four hundred and eighty three
Thousand notes
We are all playing a different key.
It is to find our threads
And learn how to weave
All of our parts together
To create some kind of tapestry
That tells a collective story
Of this ever-evolving entity
Our perfectly imperfect city.
To be the City Poet
Is not a title to hold
Not a position or a role
But a state a of being
That will continue to unfold
Until my stories have been told.
Encased in a perpetual state of curiosity
I am a poet on a quest
To find the soul
Of my city.
Follow Sukina Noor @sukina_noor. Further information about the Bristol City Poet scheme is available here.
Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival runs from April 25-May 4 at multiple central Bristol venues. For the full programme, festival passes and tickets to individual events, visit www.lyrafest.com.
Raise the Bar: Poetry and Resistance, curated by Danny Carlo Pandolfi is at Gallery 5, Arnolfini until June 1. Find out more at www.arnolfini.org.uk.
Main photo: Words of Colour/Raise the Bar
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