POETRY
Casey Bailey is the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020-2022. He is a writer, performer and educator born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham. Casey’s second full collection of poetry ‘Please Do Not Touch’ (2021) was published by Burning Eye Books. 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. His debut poetry pamphlet ‘Waiting at Bloomsbury Park’ was published by Big White Shed (2017). His first full collection of poetry ‘Adjusted’ (2018) was published by Verve Poetry Press.
Casey’s poetry has appeared in a number of places, including the following anthologies:
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. ”