Books by Roy McFarlane

Living by Troubled Waters is the third poetry collection by Roy McFarlane - an extraordinary, uncompromising book exploring slavery, colonialism, and the continued tragedies visited upon Black bodies whilst these legacies remain unresolved. In his close examination of the horror of racialised violence, McFarlane examines how the strong currents of the past and present flow side by side. His poems ask us to think about the Black Mediterranean of today as much as we do about the Windrush scandal and the aftershocks of trans-Atlantic slavery, where Black people are still imprisoned, enslaved and drowned as they flee persecution and poverty.Living by Troubled Waters is innovative, formally experimental and far ranging in scope; erasure & inclusion (to make known) poems interweave and speak to the wider body of the collection. In his use of archival documents as a space for activism and linguistic intervention, McFarlane writes back into history, reclaiming voices and reshaping narratives. His poems also draw strength from themes of place and displacement, social justice, Black motherhood, family, art - and from the power of poetry itself as a witness to troubled times.

Beginning With Your Last Breath, the debut poetry collection by Roy McFarlane, explores love, loss, adoption and identity in precise and emotionally-charged poetry. From bereavement comes forth a life story in poems; the journey of sons, friends, lovers, parents, and all the moments of growing-up, discovery, falling in and out of love, and learning to say goodbye that come along the way. Themes of place, identity, history, and race are interwoven with personal narratives in poems that touch on everything from the ‘Tebbit Test’ and Marvin Gaye to the Black Country, that ‘place just off the M6’. McFarlane’s poems are beautifully focused and crafted, moving their readers between both the spiritual and the sensual worlds with graceful, rapturous hymns to the transformative power of love.