Poetry Reading: African Poetry Book Fund *ONLINE*

Poetry Reading presented in partnership with the African Poetry Book Fund celebrating Kumi: New-Generation African Poets, A Chapbook Box Set (Akashic Books, 2024), edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani. 

Online on Zoom

Featuring readings from each of the poets included in the box set: Adams Adeosun, Feranmi Ariyo, Connor Cogill, Sarpong Osei Asamoah, Nurain Ọládèjì, Nome Emeka Patrick, Qhali, Dare Tunmise, and Claudia Owusu. 

This ten-piece, limited-edition box set—an African Poetry Book Fund (APBF) project—features the work of nine new African poets, and is part of a series started in 2014 to ensure the publication of up to a dozen chapbooks every year by African poets through Akashic Books. The series seeks to identify the best poetry written by African poets working today, and it is especially interested in featuring poets who have not yet published their first full-length book of poetry.

Adams Adeosun is a Nigerian writer and has an MFA degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Their work has been published in Transition, Catapult, Litro UK, Limbe to Lagos: Nonfiction from Cameroon and Nigeria, and elsewhere. 

Feranmi Ariyo is a storyteller from Nigeria. He won the inaugural Edition of the Punocracy Prize for Satire in 2019 and was selected as one of the Fellows of the 2022 Edition of the Unserious Collective Fellowship. His works have been featured on African Writer, Kalahari Review and Rattle's Poetry Podcast amongst others. 

Sarpong Osei Asamoah is a Ghanaian poet of Akyem and Ewe descent. His poems have been featured in SAND Journal, Poetry Ireland Review, Protean online, Bacopa Literary Review, Tampered Press Magazine, Lolwe, Agbowo Magazine, Olongo Africa Magazine, 20.35 Africa: Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and elsewhere. He has worked at LOATAD and Tampered Press. He is a poetry editor at CGWS, and the producer and host of CanonPodcast. 

Born in Cape Town at the turn of the century, Connor Cogill is a queer poet and journalist. He graduated from Stellenbosch University, first majoring in English and philosophy, then completing a postgraduate degree in journalism. Connor’s poetry has been shortlisted for the New Contrast National Poetry Prize and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and longlisted for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award. More of his work can be found in the Johannesburg Review of Books, New Contrast, and Jack Journal.

Nurain Ọládèjì lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria. His work has appeared in Transition, Acumen, Olongo Africa, Dunes Review, the Chaffin Journal, and elsewhere.

Claudia Owusu (Nana Yaa Akyaa) is a Ghanaian-American poet, filmmaker, and essayist based in Columbus, Ohio. Claudia’s work engages the spaces that Black women and girls occupy, namely their relationship with safety, carefreeness, and self-ownership. She is deeply invested in personal narratives of Black girlhood and womanhood, through which she is learning to reclaim and carve space for herself. Her writing has appeared in Vogue Magazine, Narrative Northeast, Clockhouse Magazine, and Brittle Paper. Her short films have screened at Nowness, the New York African Film Festival, Urbanworld, FilmAfrica, and Indie Memphis. She is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at The Ohio State University. 

Nome Emeka Patrick is a Nigerian poet. His work has been published or is forthcoming in POETRY, Narrative Magazine, AGNI, TriQuarterly, West Branch, Waxwing, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, A Long House, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and Pushcart Prize nominee, he emerged third place in the Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets in 2020. His manuscript We Need New Moses. Or New Luther King was a finalist for the 2019 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. He writes from Providence, Rhode Island, where he is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at Brown University. Say ‘Hello!’ on Twitter & IG @nome__patrick.

Qhali is a social justice activist, bilingual writer, poet, indigenous languages publisher, and sustainable development practitioner. She is a 2022 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity, and the founder of Loss-iLahleko which has produced South Africa's first multilingual anthology series and guidebook that explores gender-based violence in all the official languages in South Africa. She holds a masters degree in creative writing from Rhodes University and qualifications in public policy, development studies, and economics. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in literary magazines and journals including the Red Wheelbarrow, Agbowo Magazine, the Kalahari Review, and the New Contrast Literary Journal. She currently oversees research and development at the Qhama Social Housing Institute and the Steve Biko Precinct, an organisation that combines social housing with art and liberation history. She is the editor of their liberation heritage book series, My Story - Your Heritage. Qhali is a mother of two children who inspire her work, and currently lives between Johannesburg and the Eastern Cape province, where she was born.

Dare Tunmise is a poet, essayist, and software developer from Nigeria. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in the Voice Lux Journal, the Sublunary Review, Madness Muse Press, the Kalahari Review, African Writer Magazine, the Nigerian Tribune, Akewi Arts House, and elsewhere. He can be found on Twitter @Dare_Tunmise