An Evening with Jason Allen-Paisant 03/04

An evening with acclaimed poet Jason Allen-Paisant

Join The Little Bookshop for a unique evening at Seven Arts, Thursday 
April 3rd 7-8.30pm, with award-winning poet Jason Allen-Paisant, Professor of Critical Theory and Creative Writing at Manchester University. Jason is the 2023 recipient of the Forward Poetry Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize - the UK’s two most prestigious poetry awards - for Self-Portrait of Othello. In his non-fiction debut, The Possibility of Tenderness, he revisits many themes so movingly explored in his 2021 collection, Thinking with Trees.

The Possibility of Tenderness is a people’s history of the land, a family saga and an archival detective story through time. It’s the migration tale of a young scholar who arrives in Britain from rural Jamaica to study at Oxford hoping to achieve ‘upward social mobility’. Suddenly, amidst his journey of dreams and class aspiration, the plants and people of his native district, Coffee Grove, begin to offer different ways of living, alternative dreams, the possibility of tenderness and the permission to roam England.

Marrying the local and the familial with global history and unfolding as a timely and immersive tale of land, environment, and the world of plants, The Possibility of Tenderness reveals how the history of a tiny rural village in a mountainous region of Jamaica is interlinked with that of modern Britain. And, also what that rural village can teach us about leisure, land ownership and reclamation today.

Jason will be “in conversation” with Editor Lemara Lindsey-Prince; the event includes audience Q & A and book sale and signing.

Advance praise for The Possibility of Tenderness:

‘The Possibility of Tenderness is an extraordinary, necessary book from a brilliant writer: a new song of the earth.’ Robert Macfarlane

‘Profound and lyrical, The Possibility of Tenderness is intimate in the telling and epic in reach, an exploration of colonial power and collective memory told from the ground up.’ Ekow Ekshun

‘Strangely restorative, and tenderly written. Hold it in your hands and then dream of the green world.’ Monique Roffey

‘A transformative, absorbing work.’ Sinéad Gleeson

‘A beautiful and urgent work’ Kwame Dawes, author of Sturge Town

Date: Thursday 3 April 2025

Time: 7 – 8:30 pm

Venue: Seven Arts, 31A Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton, LS7 3PD

Tickets:  £25.00; which includes a copy of The Possibility of Tenderness (RRP £18.99) /

£12.00; event only

Booking is essential, online or at The Little Bookshop