A new generation of poets is emerging in the vibrant tapestry of African literature. Previously, we explored the new wave of authors with incredible and captivating narratives in Africa. Now, we spotlight the new generation of poets weaving powerful narratives that challenge conventions and celebrate cultural identity using distinctive style and rhythm.
With their distinct voices, viewpoints, and experiences, these poets—from various backgrounds and cultures—are changing the genre. Through their inventive and provocative work, this generation of poets revives Africa’s poetic tradition, pushes boundaries, disrupts norms, and enhances the continent’s cultural fabric. Meet these daring voices:
Nikitta Dede Adjirakor
Nikitta is a Ghanaian scholar and a creative writer. She is currently a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bayreuth, examining digital African language literature and popular culture. She is the producer of the film, “A Thousand Needles,” which documents African women’s sexual and reproductive health stigmas.
Learning To Say My Name
“I am particularly interested in how women themselves view their bodies within this process and its wider ramifications on structural and moral challenges like medical misogyny, sexual abuse, religious manipulation, and the patriarchy. What are the vivid ways in which women grapple with their bodies within these structures and what are the failings of society towards these women?”
– Extract from “Learning to Say My Name” by Nikita Adjirakor
Sparked by curiosity, her poetry chapbook titled “Learning to Say My Name” interrogates themes such as motherhood, silence, inheritance, and processing of trauma through the body as expressed through sexuality, reproductive health, and (in)fertility.
Titilope Sonuga
Titilope Sonuga is a writer, poet, playwright, and performer whose work grasps moments of tenderness and persistent joy at the intersection of blackness and womanhood.
She was the first poet to perform at a Nigerian presidential inauguration in 2015 and was the 9th Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton (2021-2023).
This Is How We Disappear
Titilope’s poem collection “This Is How We Disappear” explores women’s physical and emotional disappearance, a celebration of the magic of shapeshifting as an act of survival. It highlights how women survive and thrive despite the obstacles stacked against them and how we are the architects of our joy, even in the face of death.
Samuel A. Adeyemi
Winner of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize 2021, Samuel Adeyemi is a Poetry Editor at Afro Literary Magazine, and his works have appeared in Palette Poetry, Agbowo, Palette Poetry, Frontier Poetry, 580 Split, Leavings Lit Mag, The Shore, The Rising Phoenix Review, African Writer, The African Writers Review, Jaladaa.
Heaven Is A Metaphor
In his work “Heaven is a Metaphor,” Adeyemi isn’t speaking out of the guilt of abandoning faith, nor out of regret, but out of love, care, and painful understanding that his trial at attaining religious and, ultimately, spiritual independence will be as painful to his people as their unacceptance of his personality is to him.
Rabha Ashry
Grief and Ecstasy
As the title implies, “Grief and Ecstasy” tackles loss, grief, love, and pleasure. In conversations with Rabha, she reveals that her experiences inspired her poem. “When I was putting together this collection, I was experiencing a lot of grief, and I was also starting to come out of that grief and find some joy on the other side of it. I wanted to put together a collection that could speak to both, so I was thinking of the five stages of grief, and how acceptance is often understood to be the last. I wanted that acceptance to not just feel like relief, but ecstasy.” She takes her readers through the stages of grief and then into finding joy.
O-Jeremiah Agbaakin
O-Jeremiah Agbaakin holds a law degree from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and an MFA from the University of Mississippi. His poems have been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Cincinnati Review, Guernica, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. He is a member of the Unserious Collective, a Tin House scholar, and has placed second in the Grist Journal ProForma Contest. He was a finalist for the Chad Walsh Chapbook Series, the Black Warrior Review contest, and the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets.
The Sign Of The Ram
Jeremiah’s chapbook, “The Sign of the Ram,” dives into violence and fragility in masculinity, familial alienation, and violence, often justified by either religion, state, or tradition. It examines the subliminal violence in a father-son relation, earthly or divine. It’s about tenderness and intimacy (and the threat to this intimacy through betrayal and abandonment in friendship, relationship, and family).
Phodiso Modirwa
Phodiso Modirwa is a writer and poet whose work has been published in The Kalahari Review, Jalada Africa, The Weight Of Years: An Afro Anthology of Creative Nonfiction, Praxis Online Magazine, and elsewhere. A recipient of the Botswana President’s Award-Contemporary Poetry in 2016, she recently completed her poetry residency at the Art Residency Centre in Gaborone, Botswana, where she originates and writes.
Speaking In Code
In “Speaking in Code,” she shares life experiences and interrogates fatherhood and identity, love and trauma, religion and deception, silence, and the possibilities of language.
Speaking about her inspirations, Phodiso says, “Identity is one of those themes that always comes up in my work because I am fascinated by the people we become when we are out in the world. I recognise my different selves when dealing with friends, colleagues at work, and my family at home. It feels performative to be these different selves, but it is also self-preservative., At its best, it is adaptation born from an inherent need to belong.”
Nneoma Veronica Nwogu
Nneoma Veronica Nwogu is a writer, lawyer, and professor. She holds a BA from Wellesley College, an MPhil from Oxford University, and a JD from the University of Michigan. Her literary works have appeared in the Poetry Guild, Farafina, Leverage, and the Oxonian Review of Books.
Here, There, And What Is Broken In Between
Through her collection of poems, Nneoma investigates African ancestry, migration, colonisation identity, spirituality, warrior songs, and Igbo burial dance.
In a conversation with the APBF, she shares her unique perspective and inspirations. “My poems often come from my experience,” Nneoma reveals. “My father was a doctor in the village, so I saw the myriad ways in which our bodies can be warped by accident, nature…the community also fervently believed in reincarnation, and I, along with many people I knew, saw ourselves as dual persons…all of this pulled me into the potent mix of what it meant to be of a line, of a people and a place in a time continuum unbroken by the rupturing experience of death or disaster.”
As these poets continue to break boundaries and redefine African poetry, their voices inspire a global audience and our rich literary heritage. Let us celebrate and support their contributions to the literary world, ensuring their stories and rhythms resonate for future generations.
