WINNER OF THE T S ELIOT PRIZE 2021

WINNER OF THE POLARI PRIZE 2022

'Visionary and powerful. I loved it.' Hollie McNish

The female body is a political space.

C+nto enters the private lives of women from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the protests they led in the '90s to reclaim their bodies as their own – their difficult balance between survival and self-expression. History, magic, rebellion, party and sermon vibrate through Joelle Taylor's cantos to uncover these underground communities forged by women.

Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto is a love poem, a riot, a late night, and an honouring.

minds. Here is poetry that defends our right to walk without fear, wear what we choose, be who we uniquely are." - - Diana Souhami



Joelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright and author. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year (2022), Taylor is the host and co-curator of Out-Spoken, the UK's premier poetry and music club, currently resident at the Southbank Centre. A former UK slam champion, she founded SLAMbassadors, the UK's youth slam championships, in 2001 and was its Artistic Director and National Coach until 2018. Taylor is the author of three plays, a forthcoming novel and four poetry collections, including C+nto & Othered Poems, which won the 2021 T. S. Eliot Prize and was longlisted for the 2021 Ondaatje Prize. Her documentary Butch was recently featured on BBC Radio 4.