Kayo Chingonyi Press Reviews
A brilliant debut - a tender, nostalgic and, at times, darkly hilarious exploration of black boyhood, masculinity and grief. A gorgeous and necessary collection from one of my favourite writers -- Warsan Shire
[A] wonderful debut... A subtle and affecting, lyrical and powerful collection that explores boyhood, rites of passage, the ancient and the modern world -- Jackie Kay Observer
Full of nostalgia and gentleness as well as being sharply observant Stylist
Navigating the experience of growing up with music, flair and a jaw-dropping formal range, this collection is a thing of beauty -- Maria Crawford Financial Times
Chingonyi's poems are full of questions that need asking. His gift is for pushing poems further than you expected them to go. [A] striking quest of a debut -- Poetry Book of the Month, Kate Kellaway Observer
Powerful... These poems are essential and urgent and shine a light on British culture in an unique and spellbinding way Elle, `10 'Woke Works Of Literature You Need To Add To Your Reading List This Year'
Kumakanda is an essential collection from one of the UK's most exciting poets. Kayo's poetry is beautiful, thoughtful, musical and nostalgic -- Nikesh Shukla
A wonderful debut: music, race, deracination, love and death are all woven into a compelling portrait of a young man growing up, rendered in poems that are elegant yet conversational, fluent yet profoundly skillful, touched with heart-stopping lyricism. For the reader, an initiation not to be missed -- Henry Shukman
When James Baldwin described the writer's goal as stringing together sentences that were as clean as a bone, he wasn't to know that poet Kayo Chingonyi's debut collection Kumukanda would achieve exactly that -- Rianna Jade Parker Vice UK
Exceedingly powerful; by turns furious, tender and bittersweet, taking as it does the overall theme of in-betweens. Ancestry versus contemporary rites of passage. The ambiguous versus the undeniable. Who you are, and who you choose to be seen as, versus who others perceive you to be -- Clare Mulley Skinny
