The Secrets I Let Slip by Selina Nwulu

PBS Winter Pamphlet Recommended

Selina Nwulu’s frank debut is a catalogue of dichotomies and an exploration of unbelonging as she straddles cultures, politics, and values, seeking identity. In the itchy-footed job-seeker, the independent romantic or the disillusioned activist, she strives to reconcile the warring elements of her character.

Fusing the personal with the political, The Secrets I Let Slip is a tribute to modern angst, a bittersweet celebration of the everyday outsider, and an irresistible invitation from an emerging poet of considerable talent.

“Nwulu correlates ordinary apocalypses: as the kettle boils dreams are drowned in migrant ships, as cities buckle she checks her love handles in the mirror. This is essential powerful unflinching poetry.”
Joelle Taylor

“The poems in ‘The Secrets I Let Slip’ capture that liminal space where the body seems to reside in two spaces at the same time. The poet skulks effortlessly in the background of immigration borders and job centre interviews, producing imagery where her subjects are ‘a collection of atoms shredding and dividing’ and the body is constantly in motion yet static.”
Malika Booker

“’Loving and grieving’, jubilant and serious, energised as well as philosophical, Selina Nwulu is a stunning poetic voice who interweaves sharp insight with a smooth command of language.”
Mab Jones

"Explores how it is to be a young woman, and what it IS to live and work and be in this strange modern tapestry of Britain (and the world at large), with poetry that is robust and assured in its originality. A pretty unflinching (and - at times - tender and passionate) look at the world she sees and feels around her."
Sally Jenkinson