Poetry Reading: Saddiq Dzukogi, thabile makue, Cheswayo Mphanza, & Romeo Oriogun *ONLINE*
Presented in partnership with the African Poetry Book Fund, and hosted by APBF founder Kwame Dawes.
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Saddiq Dzukogi was born in Minna, Nigeria. He is the author of Your Crib, My Qibla (University of Nebraska Press, 2021). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Ploughshares, Guernica, Cincinnati Review, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. He is a PhD Student in English/Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
thabile makue is a South African healer and writer. They were the 2016–17 Current State of Poetry National South African Slam champion. Their debut collection, 'mamaseko, was released in 2020 by the University of Nebraska Press. Their work has been included in multiple journals as well as in 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent. They live in Los Angeles where they work in transformative justice and as a healer, channel, and teacher.
Cheswayo Mphanza was born in Lusaka, Zambia, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His work has been featured in the New England Review, the Paris Review, Hampden-Sydney Review, Boston Review, Lolwe, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Hurston/Wright Foundation, Callaloo, Cave Canem, and Columbia University. A finalist for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, a recipient of the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, winner of the 2020 Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest, and a Creative Capital 2022 awardee, his debut collection, The Rinehart Frames (University of Nebraska Press), is the winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. He earned his MFA from Rutgers-Newark and currently serves as the editor-in-chief for Lampblack.
Romeo Oriogun, a Nigerian poet and essayist, is the author of Sacrament of Bodies, a finalist for the Lambda Award for Gay Poetry. He has received fellowships and support from Harvard University, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Oregon Institute for Creative Research, and the IIE–Artist Protection Fund. An alumnus of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he currently lives in Ames, Iowa, where he is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Iowa State University.
The African Poetry Book Fund promotes and advances the development and publication of the poetic arts through its book series, contests, workshops, and seminars and through its collaborations with publishers, festivals, booking agents, colleges, universities, conferences, and all other entities that share an interest in the poetic arts of Africa. Established through the generosity of Laura and Robert F.X. Sillerman, the APBF promotes the writing and publication of African poetry through an international complex of additional collaborations and partnerships.