Belonging: identity, heritage and community

Jamaican British (Raymond Antrobus): the speaker has Jamaican and English heritage. Some people deny that he is Jamaican because of how he looks, and he describes being made to feel he must choose between the two sides. The phrase Jamaican British keeps returning as he claims both.
Kumukanda (Kayo Chingonyi): kumukanda is the name of the initiation rites a Luvale boy must go through before he is considered a man. The speaker, who grew up in Britain, never went through them, and knows that by that tradition he might be thought unfinished. Instead he grew up through caring for his dying mother and grieving her, and he reflects on his link to the men of his family line.
Peckham Rye Lane (Amy Blakemore): the speaker moves through a busy, crowded, multicultural street in south London, full of vivid, strange detail. It draws on the story that the poet William Blake saw a tree full of angels at Peckham Rye, finding something spiritual in ordinary city life.
In Wales, wanting to be Italian (Imtiaz Dharker): a young person in Wales longs for a different, more glamorous identity, imagined as Italian, and asks questions about who she could be.
Us (Zaffar Kunial): a poem about the small word 'us'. It hopes that people can be joined together, using images such as the sea and a Mexican wave, but admits that togetherness is hard, even between two people.

Mixed and shared heritage: Antrobus and Chingonyi show identities that others question; Dharker shows a young person trying on another identity.
Rites of passage: Chingonyi compares a traditional ritual with the real experiences that made him grow up.
Community: Blakemore finds belonging in a crowded street; Kunial asks how 'us' can include everyone.
Inside and outside: in each poem ask who is included and who is left out.
Context: Antrobus was born in London in 1986 to a Jamaican father and an English mother; this poem is from The Perseverance (2018). Chingonyi was born in Zambia in 1987 and moved to the UK aged six; Kumukanda (2017) won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Dharker was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and grew up in Glasgow. Kunial was born in Birmingham to a Kashmiri father and an English mother; Us (2018) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Jamaican British: repetition of the title phrase as a refrain; short, blunt statements that echo other people's labels; lists of contrasting descriptions.
Kumukanda: first-person free verse; enjambment that lets thoughts run across lines; a move from what he did not do to what he did; an ending that turns to his ancestors.
Peckham Rye Lane: free verse packed with surprising metaphors and sensory detail; an allusion to Blake's vision.
In Wales, wanting to be Italian: rhetorical questions and place names that show longing to be somewhere else.
Us: wordplay on the sounds in 'us'; caesura and line breaks that make the speaker hesitate; hopeful language at the end, mixed with doubt.
To write well, name the attitude: proud, uncertain, longing, celebratory or hopeful, and show the method that creates it.