Notes on INFINITE INTIMACIES

What does it mean to witness the ordinary amid violence, pollution, and grief? Why is it important for a book to hold the arrival of autumn; the densities of Beirut, Berlin, and London; the small rituals through which life continues?

The poets and artists Sylee Gore, Thembe Mvula and Nur Turkmani come together for an interdisciplinary evening of conversation, images and poetry readings about patience, observation, and archiving.

This evening celebrates the Berlin launch of three books: Mvula’s debut poetry pamphlet Cloud Vigil; Turkmani’s prize-nominated poetry collection October; and Gore’s photographs and asemics, Intimate Infinity. The event will move between readings, photographs and conversation among three poets who are also friends.

Nur Turkmani is a writer from Beirut. Her poetry collection October is shortlisted for the Pen Heaney Prize and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her writing appears in Poetry, The Iowa Review, New England Review, The Rumpus, Best New Poets, among others. She received the Anthony Veasna So Award for her short stories. She lives in Lisbon. 

Sylee Gore is a multidisciplinary writer and literary translator living in Berlin. Her poetry has appeared in over 50 journals and has been translated into Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish. Her awards include the the Bird in Your Hand Prize, the Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize, and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. She is a book critic for the Poetry Foundation and a 2025 U.S. National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry. Intimate Infinity is published by Sampson Low in November 2026.

Thembe Mvula is a South African-British poet and writer, an alum of Barbican Young Poets, the Obsidian Foundation and the Roundhouse Poetry Collective. Exploring love, rootedness and freedom, her writing considers how these live in the body, in Black and migrant memory, and in everyday intimacies. Her new poetry pamphlet, Cloud Vigil, was published by Valley Press on 1st October 2026.