Circles

Circles is an epic poem inspired by Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis. Taking the point of view of a suicide victim's lover in the play post-death, the piece takes place on London's tube network and follows the fragmented views of this once-absent character. It is a piece about love, loss and the line between sanity and insanity. Whilst fictional, the emotions and experiences are also inspired by elements of the author's life, and are written with the aim to bring comfort and healing to those who can relate to its themes.
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“I speak and the only voice I want to hear is yours” This is a quote from Carmina Masoliver’s stunning epic, Circles. Yet, I find myself feeling this way about her voice. Carmina has a very special way of finding the smallest of cracks in your heart and filling them with visceral, yet elegant poetry. She mines the mundane; those everyday moments riding the tube, or in the shower, or sitting with a stranger on a fence, and she brings you into them so gracefully, before you know it, you are sitting on the tube with her, “holding onto her hand in a reverie.” - SABRINA BENAIM

‘This poetic dramatic monologue is at once lament, and testament to an unimaginable reality. Masoliver has created a theatrical poem that is both haunting and ethereal, where the audience experience the world though a protagonist trapped in on a train looping the central line and and her recurrent memories of a lost lover. The fragmented beautiful lyrical prose unfolds like a smashed mirror, each piece a jigsaw.

Circles takes us effortlessly into the head of a suicide victim's lover in order to illuminate the devastating effect of her grief. She captures an elusive emptiness whilst hypnotising us with an honest lyrical epic.’ - MALIKA BOOKER
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Carmina Masoliver is a poet from south London, and founder of She Grrrowls feminist arts nights. She has been sharing her poetry on both the page and the stage for over a decade, and her small chapbook was published by Nasty Little Press in 2014. Her latest book ‘Circles’ is published by Burning Eye Books (2019) and is an illustrated long-form poem, and she recently self-published ‘Selected Poems: 2007 – 2012’, a mixed media pamphlet of poems. Her poetry has also been featured in publications such as Popshot Magazine, The Rialto and Brittle Star. Carmina was long-listed for the Young Poet Laureate for London award in 2013, the inaugural Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships in 2017, the Out-Spoken Prize in Performance Poetry in 2018 and 2022, and the Grindstone International Poetry Prize in 2020. Alumni of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, she has featured at nights such as Bang Said the Gun, and festivals including Latitude, Bestival and Lovebox both as a collective and individually. She performed internationally whilst living abroad, in Singapore, and in Spain.
www.carminamasoliver.com I/F: @carminamasoliver T: @CarminaPoetry