26 Connections by edited by Jacob Sam-La Rose, John Simmons Leonardo Boix Local Interest questions boundaries and

Local Interest questions boundaries and belonging

Optik: A History of Ghost (1950) and Ravage (1961)

The consequences of poet’s long-term residence in Miami are forcefully brought home through poems of emigration and estrangement

sirens and dreams make their appearance

a demented travelogue that skewers ‘the present beyond itself by the frozen image of the past’

26 Connections by edited by Jacob Sam-La Rose, John Simmons Leonardo Boix Local Interest questions boundaries andPublished 4th September 2025. What happens when you connect one poet to another to think about a theme? And what then happens when you ask them to create a poem together? Does poetry itself create common ground that rises above differences in background, culture and identity a shared space that is human and universal? 26 Connections shows the results. Here, 13 alumni of the Barbican Young Poets programme were paired with 13 from the writers group 26.