About this Event:

World Poetry Day is a day set aside to celebrate the beautiful genre called poetry and the brilliant people that create it. As part of the Isele Magazine Reading Series, to mark #WPD22, we have selected ten young African poets whose poetic expressions deserve every audience there is.

Poetry continues to thrive in Africa and with poets like these, it is even more promising.

Hosted by Ukamaka Olisakwe and Uchenna Emelife.

Date and Time:

Monday, 21 March 2022

2:00pm – 3:30pm WAT

Location:

Zoom

Meet Our Readers:

Samuel A. Adeyemi is a Poetry Editor at Afro Literary Magazine. A Best of the Net Nominee and Pushcart Nominee, he is the winner of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize 2021. His chapbook, To Erase the Wound, was selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for the New-Generation African Poets chapbook box set, 2022. His works have appeared—or are forthcoming—in Palette Poetry, Frontier Poetry, 580 Split, Strange Horizons, Agbowo, Brittle Paper, Jalada, and elsewhere.

Victoria Naa Takia Nunoo is a Ghanaian writer and poet. Her works of fiction and/or poetry have been published in various online literary magazines including the Kalahari Review, Brittle Paper, Afridiaspora, Afreada, and Praxis Mag Online. She was a contributor to the Praxis ATF5 response chapbook, ‘There Are No Women in Our House’ by Iskandar Haggarty, and to the anthology, ‘The Different Shades of a Feminine Mind’ — an African Women Writers Literary Project. Her poetry collection, Yellow Tulips, was shortlisted in the RL Poetry Award 2017. Brass Neck, her debut book of poems, was the 2018 winner of the RL Poetry Award, and a finalist for the 2021 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.

Jeremy T. Karn’s chapbook, Miryam Magdalit, was selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for the New Generation African Poet (African Poetry Book Fund), 2021. His works appeared and forthcoming in Olney Magazine, Hoxie Gorge Review, Ghost Heart Literary Journal, Whale Road, IceFloe Press, Lolwe, FERAL Poetry, Kissing Dynamite, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Olongo Africa, trampset, Auto Focus Lit, Afro Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. He is the 2020 winner of the ARTmosterrific Editor Choice Award. He tweets @jeremy_karn96.

Rahma O. Jimoh is a creative writer and journalist. She is a 2021 Hues Foundation Scholar and a 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominee. A lover of sunsets and monuments. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Lucent Dreaming, Olongo Africa, Native Skin, Agbowo, and others. She is a shortlisted writer in the Poetically Written Prose Contest, The Eriata Oribhabor Prize, and the Abubakar Gimba Short Story Prize. She is the Poetry Editor for The Quills and Olumo Review. She reads Poetry at Chestnut Review.

Abdulbaseet Yusuff is a Nigerian writer. His works appear or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Rattle, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Pigeonholes, MoonPark Review, The Indianapolis Review, Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry, and elsewhere. He’s @bn_yusuff on Twitter.

Veripuami Nandee Kangumine is a writer and poet from Windhoek, Namibia. Her poetry has appeared in the Namibian Anthology, My Heart in Your Hand (2020), and Doek! Literary Magazine. 

Ayobami Kayode is a Literature in English student at Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto. He is the Interviews Lead of Book O’Clock Review and the Editor in Chief of The Poetry CLUB UDUS. His works have been published or forthcoming in Konya Shamsrumi, Punocracy, àtẹ́lẹwọ́, BBPC Anthology, IceFloe Press, Iman Collective, Cult of Clio, and elsewhere. He was the second runner-up in the Green Write Poetry Contest (2021). He hails from Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. He tweets @AyobamiKayode15.

Munukayumbwa ‘Mimi’ Mwiya is a floater who sometimes sits still long enough to write. She is Namibian.

Ejiro Elizabeth Edward is the winner of Antoa Poetry Contest. She has been published in Hoax Publication, Downriver Road, Olongo Africa, Feral, Heartland Women Magazine, Brittle Paper among others. She has upcoming works in Native Skin and Olney. She is currently a student at the University of Benin and looks forward to being an MFA student. Find her on Twitter: Ejiroedward552, Instagram: Ejiro Elizabeth Edward.

Zaynab Bobi, Frontier I, is a Nigerian poet, digital artist, and photographer from Bobi. She is a member of Hilltop Creative Art Abuja branch, Poetry Club Udus, Frontier Collective, and a Medical Laboratory Science student of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. Her works are published and forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, Barren Magazine, Isele Magazine, Type House Literary Magazine, Night Coffee Lit, Wrongdoing Magazine, Rulerless Lit, Harbour Review, B’K Magazine, Olney Magazine, All My Relations, Salamander Ink, Anti-Heroin Chic, Kalahari Review, Sledgehammer Lit, Praxis Mag, Paddler Press, WRR, Overhead Literary Magazine, Melbourne Culture Corner, Ice Floe Press, Lunaris Review, Rigorous Magazine, Olit Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, and more. She tweets @ZainabBobi.