In association with Cultureword, Keisha presents a series of new poems alongside the script for award-winning play, Man on the Moon. 

Step into a world that uses the language of mathematics, logic and science to explore the Black British experience, masculinity and mental health. These themes are pushed through the lens of Keisha’s relationship with her dad. A recluse who has mainly communicated with Keisha through letters, symbols and books.

The book features an introduction from University of Manchester’s Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Dr Dawn Edge.  “Thought-provoking, challenging, and inspirational by turns; this work affords insight into the impact of mental illness and the healing, redemptive power of love and forgiveness.”

“This lyrical endeavour and beautiful adventure examines a complex familial relationship that is long distance, spoken through half open letter boxes and journeys effortlessly across space and time, then back again. Reading this book will help you understand what a father and daughter wish to teach and need to know about each other.”

Louise Wallwein MBE, Poet and Playwright

“Language affords us the capacity to describe our world(s), our experiences, our perspectives and thoughts. Keisha Thompson’s Lunar is the kind of work that offers proof of poetry’s omnivorous appetite, the joy of its myriad tongues, and what’s possible when those tongues meet. Lunar is a body of work in which maths is simultaneously a lens, thematic driver and method, where Venn diagrams and the game of noughts and crosses are engaged as poetic forms, where poems are graphed and graphs become poems, where common parlance is extended through mathematical symbols. And yet, it is so much more. It is a dazzling exploration of language and meaning, variable assignments and translation, both tender and unforgiving in its interrogation of heritage, culture, contemporary politics, the patterns we establish and break, and a daughter’s relationship with her father. This is bold and brilliant work.”

Jacob Sam-La Rose, Poet, Educator and Editor

Image credit: Alison Erika Forde

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“The use of symbols in Lunar, some of which are mathematical symbols, and visualizations are particularly intriguing.” – Jenn Augustine, REWRITE

“With every sentence Keisha Thompson not only paints a picture so vivid to blind, but scatters bread crumbs for us to follow in a quest that mirrors her journey towards the second part of the book: the award-winning solo show Man on the Moon.” – ALT AFRICA

“If Thompson’s graph-poems are sometimes as complex as Fermat’s last theorem, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to be moved and exhilarated by Man on the Moon.” – Yvonne Reddick, Write Out Loud