Tottering State #9: poetry for unsteady times. In this edition, innovative poetries from the87press, with readings by poets Megan Pinto, Emily Lee Luan and Mantra Mukim, and support from poet and artist Ralph Hoyte.

Emily Lee Luan is the author of *回 / Return*, a winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and published by the87press in the UK, and *I Watch the Boughs* (2021), selected by Gabrielle Calvocoressi for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2021, American Poetry Review, Lithub, and elsewhere. She teaches at Adelphi University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Megan Pinto is the author of *Saints of Little Faith*, published by the87press (2025, UK) and Four Way Books (2024, US). Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, Lit Hub and elsewhere. She has won the Anne Halley Prize from the Massachusetts Review and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers, as well as scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference and Storyknife. Megan lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College.

Mantra Mukim is a poet and essayist from Raipur, India. currently based in Oxford. His work has appeared in Minor Literature, SpamZine, Datableed, Poetry Review, Hotel, and Rialto among other places. His Hindi poems have been featured in समावर्तन (Samavartan) and anthologised in युवा द्वादश (Twelve Young Poets). He co-edits *Almost Island*. His debut poetry collection, *Glitchwork* will be published by the87press in February 2026. As a researcher, he has published the monograph *Samuel Beckett’s Lyric Failure*(Bloomsbury, 2025) and co-edited the volume *Literature and Event: 21st Century Reformulations* (Routledge, 2021) with Derek Attridge.

Ralph Hoyte is a Bristol poet, writer and located audio designer (geo-located audio triggered by GPS on location). Hoyte writes for the voice – his, or multiple voices - and has various poetic personnae which he has no intention of trying to pin down, tho’ he has been described as ’a lyric poet’ , composing epics which can last up to 3 hours; as well as ‘a surrealist poet’, which seems to mean no-one knows – perhaps himself included - what he’s on about. Current commissions include ‘The Three Waters’ project with the WWT (The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) at Steart Marshes (with Austrian artist Simone Einfalt), creating audio-visual installations and deep time geo-located walks; and as poet-in-residence for JUSTLANZ: using epic poetry to empower and support the farming communities on the Somerset Levels in their efforts to transform food-farming systems through reconciling net zero and other -  land-use ambitions.

Entry requirements: no age restrictions (under 18s to be accompanied by an adult over 21yrs, 1:1 ratio) — Read more — Read less