Naz Knight: writer, word mechanic and Poetry Champion for Bedfordshire
Naz Knight is the Poetry Champion for Bedfordshire, CEO of NINE RED Presents… (CIC), and the creative force behind Words Chose Me — using poetry, spoken word and interdisciplinary practice to open pathways into healing, connection and public good.
Through Words Chose Me, she brings together lived experience, reflective practice and creative expression in ways that help people feel seen, heard and restored. Her work invites poetry into everyday life as a source of wellbeing, belonging and transformation.
A United Nations award winner for work with women and girls, Naz is a narrative-driven creative whose practice spans poetry, prose, performance, facilitation and project design, often weaving together lived experience, social justice and healing-centred practice.
Appointed as Poetry Champion for Bedfordshire by HM Lord-Lieutenant of Bedfordshire Mrs Susan Lousada, Naz works across county-wide campaigns, public engagement, community-rooted cultural work and healing-centred creative practice.
Debra, Nzinga and the identities they carry
A name is more than just a name. Each of Naz’s names carries its own identity, ancestry and personality, and together they reflect her mixed heritage as a British-born woman of Eastern Caribbean heritage.
Debra was a name given in early childhood and, within family memory, became connected to the image of the zebra through congenital dermal melanocytosis and the loving imagination of Auntie Heather. Debra also carries older symbolic meanings linked to the bee — community, brightness, celebration, wisdom and personal power — while Deb-Ra also echoes the name of Ra.
Nzinga was the name given to her at birth by her father. It connects her to a wider African historical memory, most famously Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba, remembered for political intelligence, strength, courage and resistance to enslavement. The name also carries resonance through King Nzinga, widening its significance beyond one singular figure and rooting it within a broader lineage of leadership, authority and history.
Together, Debra and Nzinga speak to tenderness and warriorhood, brightness and resistance, wordcraft and survival. They help explain why people often experience Naz’s work as both intimate and powerful: soft in voice, but unafraid of truth.
A living language, written in beauty, and adorned in truth
Naz has long described words as energy — living forms carried through sound, vibration, meaning and movement. From an early age, before she could fully formulate written prose, she experienced language as something alive, relational and full of pattern.
Often misunderstood and accused of speaking in riddles, she found solace in wordplay, phonetics, symbolism and layered meaning. In that way, language became not only a creative medium, but a way of navigating reality itself.
Words are sound waves and Naz has often described her writing as indescribable energy that grows inside her and manifests in words, art and movement. This energy has shaped a practice that draws from expressive arts, poetry therapy, narrative psychology and movement-based approaches to create feeling spaces that centre compassion, empathy, appreciation and joy.
“A living language, written in beauty, and adorned in truth.”
From Eve Ov Luton (Evolution) by Naz Knight.
Poetry Together launch event, 2023, featuring Naz Knight with Gyles Brandreth and Roger McGough.
Public poetry, belonging and Bedfordshire
As Poetry Champion for Bedfordshire, Naz helps create opportunities for people across the county to engage with poetry as an act of expression, participation and belonging. Her approach values poetry as something lived and shared, not distant or exclusive: a form that can hold memory, feeling, humour, identity, history and hope.
This includes collaborative and place-based initiatives such as Bedfordshire poetry campaigns, workshops, walking projects, performances and opportunities for local voices to contribute to shared poems and public cultural life. Many of these sit within BedfordSHARE: Bedfordshire’s Poetry Together umbrella, where people from different backgrounds are invited to encounter each other through words.
Through these programmes, Naz promotes poetry as a route into participation, literacy, wellbeing and public imagination, helping people to feel rooted in place while also widening their sense of possibility.
Naz Knight with HM Lord-Lieutenant of Bedfordshire Mrs Susan Lousada.
“At the edge of a high street, by a bridge with a ball, there is a place on earth where numbers fall. Within that space where fate resides, NINE RED Presents… (CIC) came alive.”
Performance, prose, facilitation and new spaces
Naz’s wider body of work includes poetry, prose, performance, exhibitions, workshops, publications and interdisciplinary cultural projects rooted in Black British identity, Eastern Caribbean heritage, local memory and emotional truth. Her published and developing work includes the Collateral Beauty series, alongside other books and anthologies that centre lived experience.
Her public and participatory practice extends into Bedfordshire-based programmes, commissions, readings, collective poetry projects and wellbeing-led creative spaces. Whether she is writing, performing, facilitating or curating, her work seeks to make language feel both personal and communal: a place where people can encounter themselves and each other more honestly.
As Poet in Residence at Luton Town Football Club through the National Literacy Trust and Arts Council England’s A Poem For Your Club project, she brought poetry into new spaces, connecting football culture with literacy, belonging and voice. Alongside her creative work, Naz draws on training as a Kemetyu Holistic Health Practitioner and narrative psychologist to help keep NINE RED’s programmes survivor-informed, community-rooted and grounded in the belief that people can rewrite their own stories.
Campaigns, programmes and public pathways
Naz’s role as Poetry Champion for Bedfordshire connects to a wider ecology of programmes, campaigns, partnerships and community activity across the county.
BedfordSHARE
Explore BedfordSHARE, Bedfordshire’s Poetry Together umbrella campaign, bringing people together through poetry, story, reflection, creativity and belonging.
National Year of Reading
Visit the Bedfordshire “Go All In” page and see how reading, poetry and local participation connect through Naz’s county-wide role.
Download the pack
Access the Bedfordshire Voices brochure and supporting materials for a fuller sense of the programme’s public offer and delivery model.
Celebrating three Luton winners
As part of Bedfordshire’s Poetry Together work, three Luton voices were recognised in the 2024 national competition.
Read more here: Poetry Together 2024 — Luton Voices.
Work with Naz Knight
Naz is available for poetry-led workshops, commissions, performances, public speaking, collaborations and community-facing creative projects.
Enquiries connected to her Poetry Champion role, Words Chose Me, NINE RED Presents…(CIC), BedfordSHARE or wider interdisciplinary and healing-centred work can be made through the contact routes below.
naz@artundefined.co.uk
07881 705 719
(text only)
Related work
Words Chose Me
NINE RED Presents…(CIC)
Radiant Roots / BedfordSHARE
