Jasmine Gardosi
Birmingham Poet Laureate
ABOUT
Jasmine Gardosi is the current Birmingham Poet Laureate. She is a multiple slam champion, beatboxer and winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry.
Her work exploring identity, LGBTQ+ issues and mental health has appeared on Button Poetry, at the Tate Modern, Glastonbury Festival and across BBC Radio, including BBC Radio 3's The Verb, Radio 4 and BBC Asian Network. She was featured on Sky Arts' BAFTA-winning show, Life & Rhymes, and her poem about the pandemic, filmed on a rollercoaster, was broadcast across America on PBS after going viral on Twitter. Her performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall was recently broadcast on BBC Four and can be watched here.
A two-time recipient of an Honorable Mention for Outstanding International Entry in the Button Poetry video contest, her work has been featured on their channel to tens of thousands around the world. Her video-poem about trans voices, 'Say It Anyway', was commissioned by the Brontë Parsonage Museum as their Writer In Residence to mark the bicentenary of Anne Brontë, and was recently featured at Flatpack Festival.
Her commission for Standard Chartered saw her showcased globally as part of International Women's Day 2018 and she is a previous BBC Arts Young Creative and Poet in Residence for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
She was recently commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre to create 'Dancing To Music You Hate', her debut show exploring gender identity, which features poetry, beatbox and Celtic dubstep. The show premiered to standing ovations and was shortlisted for Best Spoken Word Show in the Saboteur Awards. Now available for tour bookings, its next showing is at Symphony Hall on 24th Jan - tickets available here.
Jasmine led West Midlands Poets’ Place for eight years. She now continues to run school and community workshops around the country.
Her debut pamphlet Hurtz is published by Verve Poetry Press and is available here.
POETRY
Rollercoaster
Broadcast across America on PBS
Commissioned by National Literacy Trust
Filmed by Paul Stringer,
courtesy of West Midlands Safari Park
Be Poet (beatbox poem)
Poem is 1:00 min into video
Performed at Symphony Hall
Footage courtesy of VerseFirst
1900s to Now
Winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry 2020
Featured by Button Poetry for their 2020 Video Contest
Raise your hand
Runner-up from the 2018 Button Poetry Video Contest
Footage courtesy of The Roundhouse, London
Performed at the 2017 Roundhouse Poetry Slam
The Battle of Junior Library
Footage courtesy of Beatfreeks
Performed at Level UP at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre
She
Courtesy of Apples and Snakes and Elstree University Technical College
Unidentified Crying Objects
Featured by Button Poetry for their 2018 Video Contest
Footage courtesy of The Roundhouse, London
Performed at the 2017 Roundhouse Poetry Slam
workshops
Jasmine leads workshops in schools and community settings. She runs regular school clubs as well as one-off day visits, and leads CPD training for teachers. She also specialises in running LGBTQ+ and creative sex education workshops for young people.
“Jasmine was immaculate in the way she planned, organised and prepared our workshop. She enthused the students and inspired them quickly.
Jasmine is able to speak with students on their own level which is a great benefit for getting them excited about poetry! All of our students agreed that the session was excellent, and our feedback has been exceptional. One student has commented that she would love for Jasmine to come back so that she could perform a poem with Jasmine!
We would recommend her to any school looking to excite students about poetry, and hope to have her back very soon!”
Teacher from St Benedict’s Catholic High School, Alcester
Her major workshop commissions include Arts-Speak, in which she artistically led a spoken word programme spanning 6 schools of the Victoria Academies Trust, showcased at the Old REP Theatre in March '18.
She was also commissioned in 2016 by The Mighty Creatives as artistic lead for the Tamworth Emerge scheme, involving schools and community workshops, Arts Award delivery and production of a youth arts festival.
“Jasmine came to lead two poetry workshops in Years 5 & 6. The children benefited hugely from her input and were able to create and perform a poem around the theme of London.
Jasmine was enthusiastic and energetic with the children and inspired them to produce some outstanding work.
The final assembly, where a selection of children read out their poems, was very impressive and thoroughly enjoyed by the rest of the school. A hugely positive experience!!”
Teacher from L’Ecole de Battersea, London
She also coordinates West Midlands Poets' Place at Birmingham Hippodrome on the last Saturday of every month. This monthly session is an informal, flexible meeting point which gives both old-time poets and newcomers the opportunity to meet like-minded people, receive critical feedback and try a writing exercise. You can keep up to date on the next session through the Poets' Place Facebook Page.
Jasmine believes in the multiple powers of spoken word to develop a participant's communication skills, self expression and confidence. She is particularly interested in taboo, its deconstruction and its power over language.
Dancing To Music You Hate
"The most important piece of art I can remember seeing"
Casey Bailey, Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020-22
Poetry. Beatbox. Celtic Dubstep.
This is Jasmine Gardosi's brand new, debut show about gender identity, coming to terms with queerness, and finding the words. Prepare for an hour of explosive dubstep bass-lines and soaring folk violin which blow apart the boundaries of gender and musical genre alike. Watch Jasmine converse, argue and compete with a live band of instrumentalists as she cracks open the binary with boldness, humour and celebration. Commissioned by Warwick Arts Centre.
“Tricky, sticky themes explored with humour, passion and euphoric music. Conversations around themes of sexuality and gender can alienate people who really need to be part of them, but this show was validating and welcoming.”
Malaika Kegode, Milk Poetry
The show premiered to standing ovations and was Verve Poetry Festival’s best-selling event of 2022 when it returned to Birmingham Hippodrome. It was recently shortlisted for Best Spoken Word Show in the Saboteur Awards.
Next Show: 24th Jan Symphony Hall - tickets here
“Jasmine Gardosi is a genius and Dancing To Music You Hate is a radical explosion of hope, courage, pain and honesty. I want to bottle this feeling and give it to anyone who has ever felt alone. This show will make them feel seen.”
“An electrifying original performance: skilful, vulnerable, fierce, funny, intelligent. Stunning musicianship intertwined with Gardosi’s poetry.”
Audience Reviews
“Stunning from start to end. I was hooked on every word, every scratch, every blow of the trumpet, touch of a key, flash of a light.”
“Genuinely one of the best experiences I’ve had.”
“I feel extremely grateful to have seen and experienced this show. I’m not sure I have ever felt so many consecutive full body chills.”
“I have rarely felt so seen in art”
“Jasmine Gardosi is a visionary and a master at what they do”
“This show is gorgeous, colourful, slick, moving and transcendent.”
Dancing To Music You Hate
is available for tour bookings
Any questions and for further information, please do not hesitate to contact Jasmine Gardosi
PUBLICATIONS
Hurtz
Verve Poetry Press
'They did it. They found a way to measure pain.
They established a metric unit. Called it hurtz.’
Jasmine Gardosi’s first foray into the printed word is an imaginative tour de force in which pain is both equated to other forms of suffering and pinned to the colour spectrum. Pain in Hurtz becomes visible like weather, as conspicuous as clothing.
The poetic landscape that this simple premise opens up for her appears as a powerful torrent of varied verse forms and styles. We are carried along with them and it is an exhilarating ride. Hurtz is everything we could have hoped for from Gardosi, and so much more.
“Anyone who’s seen Gardosi performing her work knows her wit, energy and invention; her uncanny ability to capture an emotional state you hadn’t even realised you were feeling with the perfect analogy. What emerges in these pages is the range and ambition of her poetry across a full sequence. The synaesthesia of feeling, the precise colours of pain and heartache, reincorporated, finely nuanced and just shot-through with a compassion, concern and attention which is never less than moving.”
- Luke Kennard
Available to order here
CONTACT
To contact Jasmine for gigs, workshops and commissions, email jasminegardosi[at]gmail[dot]com
She also likes making fwends:
