Momtaza Mehri wraps big topics in small conversation, resulting in titles like ‘The Apocalypse will taste like grape juice’.

‘We wanted a glorious ending. We wanted a movie. We dreamed of a finale to freeze the blood. Each day we’d wake to someone’s world ending. As sure as milk froth and betrayal, we saw our parents and their parents take their cues from the planet and grow indifferent to their own bodies.’

The British-Somali Mehri lives in London, and has a background in biochemistry. The target group of her works is not confined to circles of poetry lovers, but rather it turns to society at large. She mixes cultural sensibilities with movie references, and tradition with day-to-day thoughts, all wrapped up in a smooth delivery of words and phrases. Her power to give form to abstract concepts through concrete allegories help her present harsh ideas in bite-size portions, easy to chew but hard to swallow. Mehri’s poetry chapbook ‘sugah. lump. prayer’ has been received with awards and nominations. The sections of the chapbook are named for the Muslim times of prayer, the “one thing that stays constant in any Muslim individual’s life”. The title of the book itself links sweetness and prayer together as a form of escape, or salvation. True to form, Mehri’s pretty use of words does not limit her capacity to address frightening topics, making us double-guess our own actions, and those of the world around us:

‘Some of us will make it back, the rest

descending into a breaking night, only to be mourned

by those who look like us

across the split lip of an ocean’.

Still in her early twenties, Mehri has already been chosen to be the young people’s laureate for London. In her role as laureate, she wants to inspire more young poets in the city, and amplify their voices.