Staff
Academic Staff

Mr Kayombo Chingonyi, BA (Sheffield), MA (London)
Bio
I joined Durham in 2018 after ten years working mainly as a freelance writer and events producer in which capacity I founded and hosted two literary and musical event series; toured extensively around the world; collaborated with visual artists, music producers, composers, and dancers; wrote and performed verse drama; and completed commissions for Argent, Louis Vuitton, and Sony among others. The backbone of my work as a writer is poetry but I also write essays, literary criticism, and short stories for journals and anthologies.
My research interests are in contemporary poetry and in particular the intersection of poetry and music. I am also engaged in the fields of critical race studies, black studies, and studies of whiteness with a particular focus on performativity and lyric subjectivity. Of late I've been working on a conference paper exploring the figure of the 'sweetboy' in grime lyricism.
My latest book, Kumukanda (Chatto & Windus, 2017) was a Guardian and Telegraph book of the year and won the International Dylan Thomas Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award. I have been a Burgess Fellow at the Centre for New Writing, University of Manchester, and an Associate Poet at The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. I serve as poetry editor for The White Review, am a fellow of the Complete Works Programme for Diversity and Quality in British Poetry, and am a member of the Advisory Board for the Ledbury Emerging Critics Scheme.
Publications
Authored book
- (2017). Kumukanda. Chatto & Windus.
- (2016). The Colour of James Brown's Scream. Akashic Books.
- (2012). Some Bright Elegance. Salt Publishing.
Chapter in book
- Chingony, Kayombo (2018). Blood. In Beneath the Skin: Great writers on the body. Beauman, Ned & Alderman, Naomi London: Profile Books. 67-76.
Journal Article
- Chingonyi, Kayo (2020). ‘Whitely’ Race and Lyric Subjectivity in Clare Pollard’s Poetry. Wasafiri 35(3): 43-47.
Other (Print)
- Chingonyi, Kayombo (2019). A Poet’s Case for Wasting Time.