Epic of Cader Idris

If language is music, it is apt that a playlist is apoem. It makes even more sense in The Epic ofCader Idris, coming from Samatar Elmi, a poetwhose concerns with the origins of things and thelandscape of the margins are expressed in languageso lyrical that you could almost miss its politics in itsown music: "almost invisible, like the stencil ofwords / whispered at the front on a frosty morning,"as he writes in [Etymologies]. Where ChildishGambino sings "the algorhythm is perfect," Samatarcomes with The Algoriddim - after all, everything'sbetter with a dancehall twist, even if snakes are"running rings / all around us". As with his pamphletPortrait of Colossus, this collection straddles thecolloquial and the humorous, the philosophical andthe mundane, always resonant with the quirks of aYorkshireman of Somali heritage, one who knowsthe immigrant experience of modern Britain asintimately as he knows the cliffs and dales of his youth.