Kate Tempest is one of the most exciting and innovative performers to have emerged in spoken-word poetry in many years; her dramatic poem Brand New Ancients won the prestigious Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry. Tempest’s wholly unique blend of street poetry, rap and storytelling – combined with the spellbinding delivery of an open-air revivalist – has won her legions of followers all over the UK. Her remarkable stage presence is wholly audible in this poem, a spoken story...

**Read by the author, Kae Tempest. Including an audio-exclusive Q&A, in which Kae explores ideas of poetry, music and form.I want to sing you early songs. Go deeper.I want to take you back where you began,Find the scraps of you you hid in secretAnd bring them back to life beneath my tongue.**Divisible by Itself and One is the powerful new collection from our foremost truth-teller Kae Tempest. Ruminative, wise...

***Read by the author*Beneath the surface we are all connected . . .'An authentically soothing, powerful, thought-provoker.'MATT HAIG' On Connection is medicine for these wounded times.'MAX PORTER' On Connection came to me when I needed it most, and reminded me that the links we have to places, people, words, ourselves, are what keep us alive.'...

Beneath the surface we are all connected . . .'An authentically soothing, powerful, thought-provoker.'MATT HAIG' On Connection is medicine for these wounded times.'MAX PORTER' On Connection came to me when I needed it most, and reminded me that the links we have to places, people, words, ourselves, are what keep us alive.'CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS...

Narrated by Kae Tempest with music by Hinako Omori.Rothko Taylor has washed up with the tide, back in their hometown, Edgecliff. Fifteen years since they left it behind.The past is accelerating towards them: the skateboard kids on the high street that remind them of their teenage years, the splintered benches looking out to sea, where their mum Meg clutched her cans. The nice bit of town, where their dad Ezra tried and failed to build a hap...

Hold Your Own, Kate Tempest's first full-length collection for Picador is an ambitious, multi-voiced work based around the mythical figure of Tiresias. This four-part work follows him through his transformations from child, man and woman to blind prophet; through this structure, Tempest holds up a mirror to contemporary life in a direct and provocative way rarely associated with poetry.A vastly popular and accomplished performance poet, Tempest commands a huge and dedicate...

Running Upon The Wires is Kae Tempest’s first book of free-standing poetry since the acclaimed Hold Your Own. In a beautifully varied series of formal poems, spoken songs, fragments, vignettes and ballads, Tempest charts the heartbreak at the end of one relationship and the joy at the beginning of a new love; but also tells us what happens in between, when the heart is pulled both ways at once.Running Upon The Wires is, in a sense, a departure from their ...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG BREAKTHROUGH AUTHOR AWARDKae Tempest**'**s critically acclaimed debut novel, the literary companion to their Mercury-Prize nominated album Everybody Down, takes us into the beating heart of the capital in this multi-generational tale of drugs, desire and belonging

I'm making a decision. I'm changing things. This is it.Three old friends in their mid-twenties. One remarkable day. For Ted, Danny and Charlotte, it's time to seize control. Make a difference. Change things. This is it.A day trip through the parks and raves and cafes of South London, where life is what you make it. The rapid fire words of Kae Tempest paint a picture of lives less ordinary in an unforgiving world, sound-tracked by an exhilarating score.The dr...

*Dua Lipa's Service95 Book Club Pick for June 2026*'Trust me, you will love these characters' DUA LIPA'Amazing, it really moved me' SHON FAYE'If books can still change the world, this one most likely will' COLUM MCCANNRothko Taylor has washed up with the tide, back in their hometown, Edgecliff. Fifteen years since they left it behind.The past is accelerating towards them: the skateboard kids on the hig...

I want to sing you early songs. Go deeper.I want to take you back where you began,Find the scraps of you you hid in secretAnd bring them back to life beneath my tongue.Divisible by Itself and One is the powerful new collection from our foremost truth-teller Kae Tempest. Ruminative, wise, with a newer, more contemplative and metaphysical note running through, it is a book engaged with the big question...

Freedom has only ever meantLove.And life lived without loveIs not life enough.Chess is in prison. Facing a lengthy sentence, her cell mate, Serena, becomes her soul mate. But when Serena is given parole, Chess faces total isolation.Hope comes in the form of a music producer looking for a reason to love music again. She finds a powerful voice in Chess. But to harness her talent, Chess must first face her past.F...