February Narrative Medicine Rounds with Raymond Antrobus

We’re honored to begin the 2026 season by welcoming Jamaican-British poet, writer, and performance poet Raymond Antrobus. Antrobus is the author of Shapes & Disfigurements, To Sweeten Bitter, The Perseverance, winner of the Ted Hughes Award, Rathbone Folio Prize, and Somerset Maugham Award; finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Reading the West Book Award; and shortlisted for the Forward Prize; and All The Names Given, which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize 2021 and for which he was awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize for best work of literature in any genre. Most recently, he is the author of the collection Signs, Music and The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound: A Memoir.

The Quiet Ear tells the story of Raymond’s upbringing at the intersection of race and disability. Growing up in East London to an English mother and Jamaican father, educated in both mainstream and deaf schooling systems, Raymond explores the shame of miscommunication, the joy of finding community and shines a light on the decline of deaf education in Britain.

Throughout, Raymond sets his story alongside those of other D/deaf cultural figures – from painters to silent film stars, poets to performers – the inspiring models of D/deaf creativity he did not have growing up.

The Quiet Ear is a groundbreaking and much-needed examination of deafness. A memoir, a cultural history, a call to action.

Antrobus is also the author of two children’s picture books Terrible Horses, illustrated by Ken Wilson-Max; and Can Bears Ski?, illustrated by Polly Dunbar. This debut was selected as an Ezra Jack Keats honouree winner in 2021, and in 2022 for a Read For Empathy Collection Award.

In March of 2021, Antrobus hosted his first BBC Radio 4 Documentary – “Inventions In Sounds” – produced by Falling Tree Productions, which won a Best Documentary Award at the Third Coast International Audio Festival that year. His most recent work is a BBC World service documentary, “Recaptive Number 11,407,” that traces the lost story of a deaf man freed from slavery. The documentary was a “Radio Times Pick of the Day” and had over 70,000 downloads and streams the week of broadcast.

Antrobus was a founding member of Chill Pill and Keats House Poets Forum. He is an Ambassador for The Poetry School, Arts Emergency and a board member for English PEN, an organization that promotes freedom of expression and literature across frontiers. He is also an advocate for several D/deaf charities including Deaf Kidz International and National Deaf Children’s Society.

Antrobus has won numerous poetry slams including Farrago International Slam 2010, The Canterbury Slam 2013, and was a joint winner at the Open Calabash Slam in 2016. His poetry has appeared on BBC 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, Channel 4, The Big Issue, The Jamaica Gleaner, The Guardian, TedxEastEnd among others. A Sunday Times / University of Warrick Young Writer of the Year, he is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works 3, Jerwood Compton and the Royal Society of Literature. He is also one of the world’s first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word education from Goldsmiths University. In 2021, he won the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award judged by Carolyn Forché; and in 2017, Ocean Vuong selected his poem “Sound Machine” for the Geoffrey Dearmer Award.

His poems have been published in Poetry, Poetry Review, Lit Hub, News Statesman, The Deaf Poets Society, among others. He has poems on the UK’s (GCSE) National Curriculum.

Dr. Ana H. Kim is Professor and Chief of Otology/Neurotology & Skull Base Surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). She is also the Director of the CUMC Cochlear Implant Program. Her educational leadership includes being the Vice Chair of Education and Neurotology Fellowship Director. She maintains an active medical and surgical practice and is also a clinician-scientist with a long track record of conducting both clinical and basic science research. Her research has focused on such areas as the central effect of noise-induced hearing loss, hearing loss and dementia/cognitive decline, genetic causes of hearing loss and cochlear implant outcomes. She is a member of numerous professional societies and also serves on the New York State Hearing Aid Advisory Board. She has authored numerous publications and has presented nationally and internationally.