Joolz Sparkes lives in Islington and represents North London in this collection.
Joolz Sparkes is a member of the collective, Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, has featured at Ledbury Poetry Festival and was poet-in-residence at Leicester Square tube station.
Shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2010, she is published in magazines such as Magma, South Bank Poetry, Great Weather for Media, Shooter Literary Magazine and online at Ink Sweat & Tears.
London Undercurrents written together with Hilaire is her debut poetry collection.
Joolz says:
‘As a student and young adult, I lived in many boroughs of London, but Islington is the one that has claimed me as one of her own.
It’s only since working on this joint project that I’ve realised the sheer volume of women who have lived in my local area but whose lives have gone unheard and unrecorded over the centuries.
Where are the statues, the blue plaques, the names in reference books, the social histories? I had to delve deep, listen to ghosts, discover and imagine, search hard for signs of the women who’ve struggled, laughed, scraped by, thrived, dreamt, and left their traces in London’s shifting clay. It should not be so hard to find them.’
Joolz reads Dodging the Doctor from London Undercurrents on YouTube
More information is available from her website.
