The event takes place online, from 6pm till 7.30pm (UK time), on Thursday, 10 October 2024, as part of Journeys Festival International which takes place in the UK cities of Leicester, Manchester and Portsmouth annually, and which explores refugee and migrant experiences through the arts.
As part of the evening, poets featured in the African Migration Report: an Anthology of Poems; Volume 1 (CivicLeicester, forthcoming) will share poetry and reflections on the theme of African migration, the vision they have on the matter, and how we get to a future where freedom of movement is a right that extends to and includes Africans on the continent and in the diaspora.
The readings and conversations will be followed by a Q&A with all present.
Attendance and participation are free and open to all.
REGISTRATION
To attend, please register here.
FEATURED POETS
Abíọ́dún Abdul is a Yorùbá-Nigerian English Language Lecturer and UNESCO Global Poetry Slam Champion 2022. Her poems focusing on social justice and celebrating our common humanity are published in various anthologies. She also writes short stories, life essays and memoir-polemics exploring social issues encompassing her schooling across Yorùbá-Nigeria, Scots-Britain, and Japan.
Nzingha Assata (nee Bedward/Gordon) is from Jamaica and has lived in England since January 1959. Nzingha is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother holding a BA (Hons) in Social Science. She is also a retired health professional. As a community activist, she is a Garveyite, Pan-Afrikanist here in the UK, Jamaica and on the continent of Afrika. She takes her politics with her and aims to link with other activists when she travels.
Efua Boadu. British-Ghanaian writer. In 2021, Efua was shortlisted to join the Southbank Poetry Collective. Her work has featured in Isele and Afritondo journals. She has been longlisted for the 2022 Afritondo Short Story Prize, the 2023 Mary Prince Award, and the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Twitter/X handle: @FRH210
Sierra Leone born artist and poet Amanda Holiday moved to the UK aged five. She has exhibited artworks at INIVA and Tate Britain and has shows forthcoming with Vivienne Roberts. Founder of Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, Holiday is currently completing a PhD in Poetry, Race and Art at Brighton University.
Sello Huma is a spirited and musically inclined poet and social entrepreneur from Limpopo in South Africa. His poems and songs are the books of our ancestors focusing on issues related to African unity, culture, history, futures and justice for people of color. Alongside his stage performances, his work can be found in the Sol Plaatjie European Union Poetry Anthology, Ons Klyntji, Afritondo, Agbowó, New Coin, Brittle Paper, Tampered Press and elsewhere.
Nandi Jola was born in Gqebera, South Africa. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English (Poetry) from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Nandi is a poet, storyteller, playwright and creative writing facilitator, and is well known in Northern Ireland and beyond for her work in the Arts and Museum and Heritage sector. Nandi was curator of the Golden Shovel Poetry Jukebox and is a creative writing facilitator for Quotidian. Among her plays, the topically titled Partition, and The Rise of Maqoma, engage with and also seek to move beyond Eurocentric themes. https://www.doirepress.com/writers/nandi-jola
Mark Kennedy Nsereko is a Muganda writer, and lawyer. His works are reflections on injustice. They are also glimpses into the orchestra of beautiful chaos that is his mind. These have been featured in the poetry anthology, I Promise This Song Is Not About Politics, and in the magazines Brittle Paper, African Writer, and Akpata Magazine. Other works are forthcoming in Transition, and Iskanchi Magazine.
Helidah Ogude-Chambert is a South African-Kenyan Pan-Africanist whose work, both scholarly and creative, flows through bodies of water, state cruelty, affective forces of resistance, and the everyday brutalities of living—and dying—while Black. She is captivated by how Black and migrant bodies carry stories of refusal across multiple temporalities, challenging the colonial linearity of time. She teaches at Oxford University, seeking new ways of understanding race, mobility, and resistance.
Elly Ray is a poet from Hargeisa, Somalia. She has been writing as hobby since childhood. She is a counsellor, a word magician and a healer who wishes to bring some healing upon the wounded among us.
Laurène Southe, a 24-year-old Congolese-Austrian writer, discovered her passion for poetry at 17 through the Vienna African Writers Club. Her full-time pursuit began after a 2021 performance at the African Diaspora Festival. She showcased her work in group exhibitions and at the Vienna Design Week, and completed her first poetry book, Child of Congo, during a writer residency at Echo Correspondence, aiming to publish it in coming years.
NOTES
Organised by Forced Migration and The Arts in collaboration with CivicLeicester and Regularise, the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series draws inspiration from the 2nd Edition of the Africa Migration Report, jointly published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in March 2024. Through poetry, the series explores multifaceted narratives surrounding African migration, capturing personal, familial, community, national and international histories and experiences of African migration. Because every day is Africa Day, our call for submissions is open 365 days a year.
Forced Migration and The Arts is an international network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and art spaces for conversation looking at work taking place at the intersection where forced migration and the arts meet. The network hosts monthly indabas or discussion forums on the last Thursday of each month and encourages mutual support and collaboration.
Regularise is a migrant-led collective founded in late 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The collective aims to address the years of sustained hardships that undocumented migrants experience in the UK and continues to organise and campaign for justice and for the rights of undocumented migrants.
CivicLeicester is a community publisher that uses print and digital technologies, social media platforms, the arts, and online and in-person events to highlight conversations of transnational interest and significance. Books we have edited and published include Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2023), Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology (2022) and Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2019).
REGISTRATION
To attend, please register here.
FEATURED POETS
Abíọ́dún Abdul is a Yorùbá-Nigerian English Language Lecturer and UNESCO Global Poetry Slam Champion 2022. Her poems focusing on social justice and celebrating our common humanity are published in various anthologies. She also writes short stories, life essays and memoir-polemics exploring social issues encompassing her schooling across Yorùbá-Nigeria, Scots-Britain, and Japan.
Nzingha Assata (nee Bedward/Gordon) is from Jamaica and has lived in England since January 1959. Nzingha is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother holding a BA (Hons) in Social Science. She is also a retired health professional. As a community activist, she is a Garveyite, Pan-Afrikanist here in the UK, Jamaica and on the continent of Afrika. She takes her politics with her and aims to link with other activists when she travels.
Efua Boadu. British-Ghanaian writer. In 2021, Efua was shortlisted to join the Southbank Poetry Collective. Her work has featured in Isele and Afritondo journals. She has been longlisted for the 2022 Afritondo Short Story Prize, the 2023 Mary Prince Award, and the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Twitter/X handle: @FRH210
Sierra Leone born artist and poet Amanda Holiday moved to the UK aged five. She has exhibited artworks at INIVA and Tate Britain and has shows forthcoming with Vivienne Roberts. Founder of Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, Holiday is currently completing a PhD in Poetry, Race and Art at Brighton University.
Sello Huma is a spirited and musically inclined poet and social entrepreneur from Limpopo in South Africa. His poems and songs are the books of our ancestors focusing on issues related to African unity, culture, history, futures and justice for people of color. Alongside his stage performances, his work can be found in the Sol Plaatjie European Union Poetry Anthology, Ons Klyntji, Afritondo, Agbowó, New Coin, Brittle Paper, Tampered Press and elsewhere.
Nandi Jola was born in Gqebera, South Africa. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English (Poetry) from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Nandi is a poet, storyteller, playwright and creative writing facilitator, and is well known in Northern Ireland and beyond for her work in the Arts and Museum and Heritage sector. Nandi was curator of the Golden Shovel Poetry Jukebox and is a creative writing facilitator for Quotidian. Among her plays, the topically titled Partition, and The Rise of Maqoma, engage with and also seek to move beyond Eurocentric themes. https://www.doirepress.com/writers/nandi-jola
Mark Kennedy Nsereko is a Muganda writer, and lawyer. His works are reflections on injustice. They are also glimpses into the orchestra of beautiful chaos that is his mind. These have been featured in the poetry anthology, I Promise This Song Is Not About Politics, and in the magazines Brittle Paper, African Writer, and Akpata Magazine. Other works are forthcoming in Transition, and Iskanchi Magazine.
Helidah Ogude-Chambert is a South African-Kenyan Pan-Africanist whose work, both scholarly and creative, flows through bodies of water, state cruelty, affective forces of resistance, and the everyday brutalities of living—and dying—while Black. She is captivated by how Black and migrant bodies carry stories of refusal across multiple temporalities, challenging the colonial linearity of time. She teaches at Oxford University, seeking new ways of understanding race, mobility, and resistance.
Elly Ray is a poet from Hargeisa, Somalia. She has been writing as hobby since childhood. She is a counsellor, a word magician and a healer who wishes to bring some healing upon the wounded among us.
Laurène Southe, a 24-year-old Congolese-Austrian writer, discovered her passion for poetry at 17 through the Vienna African Writers Club. Her full-time pursuit began after a 2021 performance at the African Diaspora Festival. She showcased her work in group exhibitions and at the Vienna Design Week, and completed her first poetry book, Child of Congo, during a writer residency at Echo Correspondence, aiming to publish it in coming years.
NOTES
Organised by Forced Migration and The Arts in collaboration with CivicLeicester and Regularise, the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series draws inspiration from the 2nd Edition of the Africa Migration Report, jointly published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in March 2024. Through poetry, the series explores multifaceted narratives surrounding African migration, capturing personal, familial, community, national and international histories and experiences of African migration. Because every day is Africa Day, our call for submissions is open 365 days a year.
Forced Migration and The Arts is an international network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and art spaces for conversation looking at work taking place at the intersection where forced migration and the arts meet. The network hosts monthly indabas or discussion forums on the last Thursday of each month and encourages mutual support and collaboration.
Regularise is a migrant-led collective founded in late 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The collective aims to address the years of sustained hardships that undocumented migrants experience in the UK and continues to organise and campaign for justice and for the rights of undocumented migrants.
CivicLeicester is a community publisher that uses print and digital technologies, social media platforms, the arts, and online and in-person events to highlight conversations of transnational interest and significance. Books we have edited and published include Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2023), Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology (2022) and Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2019).
