In 2017, Newcastle University will be celebrating its award of an honorary degree to Dr Martin Luther King fifty years ago (the only UK University to do so). As both tribute to his memory and continuing inspiration, Bloodaxe Books will publish a poetry anthology on 11 November 2017. This will coincide with the dedication of a monument to Dr. King at Newcastle University and the celebration of his legacy. 

The Mighty Stream: Poems in Celebration of Dr Martin Luther King is edited by Newcastle University Professor of Poetry and Scots Makar Jackie Kay and Carolyn Forché, the director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University, Washington. In the spirit of Dr King and his work as a humanitarian and activist, this anthology will bring together poems that offer powerful testimonies to the urgent issues Dr King defines and represent a polyphony of voices that speak in resistance to our continuing problems of racism, poverty and war. The Mighty Stream includes work from leading poets from both sides of the Atlantic, including Claudia Rankine, Patricia Smith, Jericho Brown and Oliver de la Paz, as well as Malika Booker, Vahni Capildeo, Grace Nichols and John Agard.