A collection of poetry by Hughes Hall alumnus, Claudine Toutoungi.

Claudine Toutoungi studied at Hughes Hall in 2007 to 2008 while she did her PGCE. She recently came to Hughes Hall to talk to our new students about her experience at Hughes. While she was here she told us about her debut poetry collection Smoothie (Carcanet, 2017). It was kindly called ‘superb’ by Ian McMillan and Claire Trevien said of it ‘ …in this Brexit mess we live in it’s hard not to feel charmed by a collection that frequently reads like a love letter to European culture.’ Claudine’s poems have appeared in Poetry Chicago, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Spectator and elsewhere. Her plays have been on BBC Radio 4, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, and the Lark in New York. She regularly pops up at poetry events across the UK and beyond and her second collection Two Tongues is out from Carcanet next year.