Imani Mason Jordan
PIVOT

Shortlisted for the T.S Eliot Prize, 2026

PIVOT is a book-length poem exploring the profound act of turning, with the Haitian Revolution as its cornerstone. It moves beyond historical narrative, scrutinising this epochal event through its critical junctures of rupture and radical reorientation. Using minimalist abstractions of language, Mason Jordan delves into the visceral and conceptual mechanics of turning: a turning away from colonial subjugation, and a turning towards new vocabularies of freedom. PIVOT examines international revolt, revolutionary fervour, and relation in the aftermath of transatlantic enslavement and European colonialism.

Released 12 March, 2026

Author

Imani Mason Jordan is a writer, editor, artist and curator working across performance and poetics. A PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham, they research carcerality and racial capitalism through the work of Stuart Hall. Their experimental, text-driven performance practice uses improvisation, minimalist technique and black study to choreograph language, foregrounding the speaking/reading voice as a musical instrument. In 2026, Mason Jordan curated the group exhibition Nomenclature for the Time Being at Raven Row, London. PIVOT is their debut poetry collection.

Endorsements

"A staccato of the spirit, syllables gripping the tongue! This is avant-garde in the true sense of the word, a place for every reader to take their place! Thank you, Dear Poet, for sparing us nothing, "swarmed over guns, and gunners, silences / nothing, two thousand dead lay upon the / field"—a brilliant collection of poems!"
—CAConrad

Editor

M.E. Bahrī

Publication

12 March, 2026

ISBN

978-1-917913-06-5

Specification

110 × 170 mm

Paperback