North Carolina / Nigeria
Poetry Manuscript Coaching
with Keetje Kuipers
Recipient of the Black Writers Matter Fund
I am a Black, nonbinary poet from Nigeria. I have a Bachelor’s of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2023, I was a Tin House Summer Scholar and had the pleasure of attending the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference. I have received some cool awards for my writing, notably a University & College Poetry Prize from The Academy of American Poets and semi-finalist for the 2023 Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry from Nimrod International Journal. I have individual poems published or forthcoming in Shō Poetry Journal, Poets.org, Nimrod International Journal, Driftwood Press, and Allium: A Journal of Poetry & Prose, among others. My poetry is inspired by my experience as a Black, queer, Nigerian immigrant, and by my fascination with magic and beauty as it translates to writing. I like to write about family, spirituality, nature, gender, love, death, and dreams. At UtV I will be doing generative work and revisioning of my first poetry collection, a work that is heavily influenced by my personal identities, and that contemplates my relationship to death and the beyond. Aside from poetry, I am a big fan of apocalyptic literature.