It's wonderful to be able to welcome Will Harris to the bookshop to celebrate the publication of his next poetry collection, Brother Poem. RENDANG, his debut collection, was a bookseller favourite here in the shop and we're so excited for this next collection of poems addressed to a brother who never existed. He will be in conversation with writer and academic Helen Charman.

This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.

In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of Brother Poem – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on the website against a single copy of Brother Poem.

In Brother Poem, Will Harris follows up his debut collection with a set of poems addressed to the brother that he never had. Fascinated by the contradiction of mourning what never existed, Harris paints a moving portrait of contemporary anxieties around language, identity and images of the self. In these poems, Harris wields shifting perspectives and obsessive thought loops to reflect on the fictions we tell ourselves in our attempts to live up to the demands of others. The result is a stunning, idiosyncratic work of speculative poetry – one in which Harris enters into a parallel timeline in order to better understand our current world.

Will Harris is a London-based writer. His debut poetry book, RENDANG, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. His poems and essays have appeared in the New Republic, Poets & Writers, SPAM, the TLS, and Granta. He co-leads the Southbank Poetry Collective with Vanessa Kisuule, and works in extra care homes in Tower Hamlets as an activity worker. He is a visiting poetry fellow at UEA developing a new community-led archive of four poets' work.

Helen Charman is a writer and academic based in Glasgow. Her first book, MOTHER STATE, is forthcoming from Allen Lane. She teaches in the English Studies department at Durham University.

Will Harris – Brother Poem