The kids

Hannah Lowe taught for a decade in an inner-city London sixth form.

At the heart of this book of compassionate and energetic sonnets are fictionalised portraits of ‘The Kids’, the students she nurtured.

But the poems go further, meeting her own child self as she comes of age in the riotous 80s and 90s, later bearing witness to her small son learning to negotiate contemporary London. Across these deeply felt poems, Lowe interrogates the acts of teaching and learning with empathy and humour.

Social class, gender and race – and their fundamental intersection with education – are investigated with an ever critical and introspective eye.

These boisterous and musical poems explore the universal experience of what it is to be taught, to learn and to teach. The Kids – a Poetry Book Society Choice – won the 2021 Costa Poetry Award and went on to be named Costa Book of the Year, and was also shortlisted for the 2021 T.S.

Eliot Prize.