The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. BBC Radio broadcaster Fee Mak hosts this session, where you can discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.
Performance will be approx 20 minutes
Alfiah Jade Brown - In Memory of Aunty Woody
In Memory of Aunty Woody is a 20-minute live poetry performance written by Alfiah Jade Brown. Blending four poems with archival footage and a Caribbean reggae-inspired soundscape, it weaves live verse, video, and music into an intimate reflection on loss, memory, and what we inherit.
After laying her grandmother to rest on British soil—next to her great-grandparents—Alfiah faced a quiet grief: she may never stand on the land that raised the woman who raised her. Now it’s her turn to carry the culture, the stories, the bits you don’t write down.
Part tribute, part reckoning, this piece holds the fear of forgetting—and asks, especially for Black Britons, how we carry forward the things that made us, when the people who made us are no longer here to remind us.
Alfiah Jade Brown is a visual poet, producer, and facilitator from South London, patterning poetry with visuals, rhythm, and sound to create experiences you don’t just read—you feel. Raised around her father’s sound system, she discovered early how words can move people, literally and emotionally. Embracing her dyslexia, Alfiah flips language on its head, turning everyday moments into immersive storytelling. Constantly scribbling, snapping, and filming, her work is a living collage of life. A passionate advocate for community arts, she’s led workshops with Poetic Unity, Apples and Snakes, and Bold Tendencies. Her debut poem, I, Luv Ya West, was recently commissioned by The Television Centre.
