Improvised Explosive Device

By Arji Manuelpillai

Improvised Explosive Device is a startlingly innovative exploration of extremism, hate crime and violence by poet Arji Manuelpillai. In this powerful and unsettling first collection, Manuelpillai presents a vision of the contemporary haunted by Melville's image of the whale – the terror beneath the surface of the sea. His uncompromising focus on violence is laced with gallows humour and the surreal, framed against the mundane detritus of modern life: two boys playing Mortal Kombat; a field of old trainers; the lonely glare of laptop light; a suspicious looking package in the back seat of a van.
The poems in Improvised Explosive Device emerged through research and interviews with academics, sociologists, and former members of extremist groups and their families – from the English Defence League and the National Front to ISIS and the Tamil Tigers. These complex, unnerving texts ask a series of important questions. What drives a person to commit a radical act of violence? How is that violence mediated through screens and social media? And how does the British government police marginalised groups? Improvised Explosive Device is a brave, surprising and risk-taking book; it will change the way you look at the world.
"Refusing glib analysis and easy answers, Improvised Explosive Device is a work of radical empathy, fuelled by honesty and compassion, both for those stirred to violence against minorities, and those who suffer from it." Rishi Dastidar
"The project of Arji Manuelpillai's Improvised Explosive Device leans into the mighty disciplines of poetry, sociology, and reportage to formulate an arresting debut which contests the ways we're conditioned to internalise notions of terrorism, nationalism and belonging...a bold and startling new work." Anthony Anaxagorou

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penned in the Margins
• Release date: Oct 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781913850166

Arji Manuelpillai

Arji Manuelpillai is a poet, performer and creative facilitator based in London. For over 15 years Arji has worked with community arts projects nationally and internationally. Recently, he was the Jerwood Arvon Mentee mentored by Hannah Lowe. His poetry has been published in magazines including Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Bath Magg and many more. He has also been shortlisted for many prizes including The Oxford Prize 2019, The Live Canon Prize 2020, The National Poetry Prize 2021 and Winchester Prize 2021. He has also come runner-up in the Robert Graves Prize 2020. Arji was provided a Develop Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England in January and has been using the time to interview and discuss extremism in its many forms in the UK. Arji is a member of Malika's Poetry Kitchen and London Stanza. Arji's debut pamphlet Mutton Rolls was published with Out-Spoken Press.

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IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE

Arji Manuelpillai is a poet, performer and creative facilitator based in London. His poetry has appeared in magazines including Poetry Wales, The Rialto and bath magg, and his debut pamphlet, Mutton Rolls, was published with Out-Spoken Press. Arji was shortlisted for the Oxford Prize, the Live Canon Prize, the National Poetry Prize and the Winchester Prize, and was runner-up in the Robert Graves Prize. He is a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen and London Stanza, received an Arts Council England award to develop his creative practice, and worked with Hannah Lowe as part of the Jerwood/Arvon Mentoring Programme.

ALSO BY ARJI MANUELPILLAI

Mutton Rolls (Out-Spoken Press, 2020)

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PUBLISHED BY PENNED IN THE MARGINS

Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 6AB

www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk

All rights reserved

© Arji Manuelpillai, 2022

The right of Arji Manuelpillai to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Penned in the Margins.

First published 2022

ePub ISBN

978-1-913850-16-6

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

CONTENTS

Portrait of a Man Fitting into a Fake Suicide Vest

Rapid Eye Movement

The Mother

Tusk

After the Prime Minister’s Statement

Mistaken Identity

188 to Greenwich

Let’s Just Call Them Butterflies

Methods of Fitting In

You Must Have Misheard Him

The Cameraman

Her Love is a Red Rose

Mouse

Minutes After the Attack

Way Back

Ways of Being Heard

I was just LIVE-fed two young men knife-fighting in Greenwich

Thaipusam

Tank

The Expendables

Don’t take this the wrong way but

If You Don’t Like It, Leave

I Love You Man

Youtube.com/watch?v=MkqLs6ZX_TQ (Please do not watch this)

While Trying the Crème Brûlée

Nothing British

The Man Who Played Records to Aliens

The Calling

This Is Not an IED

Hate

Mortal Kombat

PREVENT

Einstein said

Suspicious-looking Individual

44 Ways to Make and Kill a Terrorist

House, Bus Stop, Bus, Driver

True Lies

Salad

A Decent Pair of Nikes

A Cigarette Tastes Better When the House is Full

Days Before

Magic Eye

A Year On

Objects Increase Their Distance at Ever-increasing Speeds

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Improvised Explosive

Device

‘Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under