Oi You Lot / Kareem Parkins-Brown

The sky belongs to everybody and everybody belongs to the sky.
When the genie comes out, wish for late buses
and missed trains, and beers on benches,
because when someone is gone, they are gone.

Oi You Lot is an audacious, richly plural celebration of friends and selves, present and otherwise. In Parkins-Brown’s hands, language bends like an illusionist’s spoon – a dazzling, fisheye-lens distortion of daily grief, absurdity and communion – while reminding us always that the trick is to carry on living.

‘Parkins-Brown’s excellent pamphlet is like a funeral held in a bouncy castle: the line-breaks slip on their own tears, jumping mourners get bruised by their collisions and the laughing starts to sound a lot like crying.’ Caroline Bird 

‘There is no writer like Kareem Parkins-Brown. How exciting to see new pathways through the forest of the British canon. Oi You Lot is the tender within the storm, written at the pulse of the moment.’ Caleb Femi 

‘I have been waiting for this book for years. Sacred and profane, these are critical, kinetic poems for, and of, right now.’ Rachel Long

‘Kareem Parkins-Brown is one of the most beloved wordsmiths on the London poetry circuit. Oi You Lot will show its readers why.’ Raymond Antrobus

‘The lightkeeper of hood surrealism. My heart runs to Kareem’s poems, to Kareem’s worlds. His poems mean the world to me.’ Tice Cin

25th June 2024 | Paperback: 978-1-913268-64-0 | ePub: 978-1-913268-65-7

Part of Little Betty 2024, curated by Anja Konig and Gboyega Odubanjo.
In memory of Gboyega, with love.