Poetry

I am a 24-year-old award-winning spoken word artist and published poet currently living and working in the North East of England. Leeds born and bred, my work has a strong sense of place, exploring both my formative experiences as a queer, working-class teenager in the city’s goth and alternative rock scenes, and my lifelong love of the landscapes that much of Yorkshire’s literary history is in conversation with. This tension, between the urban and the pastoral, the fantastical and the naturalistic and the idyllic and the monstrous, is what I am most interested in exploring.

A multiple-times slam champion, in 2018 I was part of the University of Leeds’ winning collegiate Slam of the North team, and I won the annual Beeston Slam in 2019. In 2022 I was crowned the Huddersfield Literature Festival Slam Champion and won the Ooh Beehive October Slam heat, ahead of their national finals in December. I have performed as a featured poet across Leeds, Huddersfield and Sheffield, and my work was most recently commended by Hive in their Young Poets Competition.

In addition to hosting multiple spoken word nights and judging poetry competitions, I have also facilitated and led poetry workshops with young people between the ages of 13 – 22, on themes such as growing up, identity, politics and queerness.

E2L: Edinburgh to Leeds // A collaboration with Cameron Naylor

Edinburgh to Leeds is a collaboration between spoken word poet Rhiannon-Skye Boden and experimental sound artist Cam Naylor. Released in 2021, it has been played on Radiophrenia 2022 and Sonic Stimulus by Rounded Radio, and was shortlisted by BBC Sounds as one of their top five podcasts.

A Bouquet for Ballance // A trio of digital zine poetry collections

In 2020, I released three digital poetry zines: A Posy for Energy, A Posy for Wonder and A Posy for Comfort. Filled with poems, recipes and mindfulness exercises, these mini-collections were designed to bring solace and whimsy during a time of lockdown. Freelance journalist Caitlin Johnson said of them: “They’re like watching a highlight reel of a childhood on a warm, rainy day.”

Recent Publications

“Golden Hour” – BlueHouse Journal, Issue 4

“Envy” – Sein und Werden, Locus Delicti: The Crime Scene