Following in the committed political footsteps of the late, great Adrian Mitchell, and delighting in the kind of punk wordplay that brought fame to John Cooper Clarke, Sai Murray has built an enthusiastic audience for his dramatic poetry performances. Challenging the status quo, his poems take on the age of consumerism and, as befitting a reformed ad-man, the worlds of advertising and shopping. He also delivers parodies of the language of the Red Tops, the clichés of our political rulers, the trivialisations of Facebook, and the burying of history in a Caribbean made fit for tourists.
Sai Murray’s poems range wide, but all have at their centre the desire to cauterise the deceits of language, and find a world full of wit and warmth, liberty and fraternity.
”A captivating performer, and a brilliant, thought-provoking, wordsmith.”
Dorothea Smartt
“A truly original voice.”
Courttia Newland
Sai Murray is a writer, poet and graphic designer of Bajan/Afrikan/English heritage. In a former life he worked in advertising – he has been clean for over 13 years and now works with selected grassroots community organisations through his artist/activist promotions agency, Liquorice Fish. The first part of his debut novel, Kill Myself Now: The True Confessions of An Advertising Genius was published by the Inscribe imprint of Peepal Tree Press (2008).
Sai is currently a member of digital arts collective Virtual Migrants; a resident poet at Numbi; a facilitator on Platform’s youth arts and campaigning project Shake!; creative writing facilitator/mentor with mental health arts charity Artists in Mind; the Arts and Politics Editor of Sable LitMag; and Artistic Director of Scarf magazine.
He has performed and collaborated with musicians across the UK, Barbados and USA; and has been poet coach of winning slam teams at Leeds Young Authors’ Voices of a New Generation 2009 and 2010, and the GSAL Speak Up Slam 2012. In 2012 he coached his school team to win the biggest ever national UK youth slam, Shake the Dust.
Find him online at saimurai.wordpress.com and ad-liberation.tumblr.com.