Fathers of the Black Country is told through the voice of poet Roy McFarlane, who begins with stories from young fathers and shares memories of those who have passed over: an ode to the different stages of fatherhood. This second season of the Sandwell Stories podcast looks at the past and the present, the lives of a new generation, and a desire to belong; mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; young people making a mark on the streets of Sandwell.
Roy McFarlane is a writer and poet born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage and spent most of his years living in Wolverhampton and the surrounding Black Country. He has held the role of the Birmingham Poet Laureate, been the Starbucks Poet in Residence and is currently the Birmingham & Midlands Institute Poet in Residence.
His debut collection, Beginning With Your Last Breath was followed by The Healing Next Time, (Nine Arches Press 2018) nominated for the Ted Hughes award, Jhalak Prize, a Poetry Book Society recommendation and selected by the Guardian as one of the best poetry titles of 2018.
He has also co-edited an anthology of poems by locally based artists, Celebrate Wha'? - Ten Black British Poets from the Midlands (Smokestack 2011) and was featured in the major 2012 anthology of Black and Asian poetry, Out of Bounds: British Black and Asian Poets.
He’s also a graduate of the MA in Writing Poetry with Newcastle University and he’s presently a Jerwood Bursary recipient looking at mothers and daughters of Windrush.
