Alumnus Ian Humphreys publishes debut poetry collection, Zebra

Ian graduated from Manchester Writing School's MA Creative Writing Poetry programme in 2016. He published his debut collection, Zebra, in April 2019.

Ian graduated from our MA Creative Writing Poetry programme in 2016. Find out more about the course here.

Ian Humphreys’ debut collection, Zebra, is with Nine Arches Press (2019). He is widely published in journals and anthologies, such as The Poetry Review, The Rialto, Magma and The Forward Book of Poetry 2019. Awards include first prize in the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize, and highly commended in the Forward Prizes for Poetry. Ian is a fellow of The Complete Works, which promotes diversity, quality and innovation in British poetry. A portfolio of his poems is published in Ten: Poets of the New Generation (Bloodaxe, 2017).

You can find out more about Ian and his work on his personal website here.

In Zebra, a boy steps tentatively from the shadows onto a strobe-lit dancefloor. Ian Humphreys’ much-anticipated debut shimmers with music, wit and humour while exploring mixed identities, otherness, and coming-of-age as a gay man in 1980s Manchester. These acutely-observed, joyful poems pay homage to those who took the first steps – minority writers, LGBT civil rights activists, 70s queer night-clubbers and the poet’s own mixed-race parents.

A heady cocktail of the playful, political and mythical, Humphreys’ Zebra is also a creature of opposites – light and dark, countryside and cityscape, highs and lows. The collection moves from semi-rural England to the metropolitan hubs of Hong Kong, London and New York, circling its subjects, often finding the uncanny in the familiar, always drawing the reader centre-stage.

Order your copy here.