My Work
With every teaching experience, I am reminded of the importance of representing my knowledge and truth as a black female scholar and poet. Audre Lorde writes in “Poetry is not a Luxury” that poetry “... is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.” I have often considered my poetics as a way of theorizing the existence of my voice as a Ghanaian immigrant seeking to make space for herself in academia. I am intentional towards creating practices that dismantle and disrupt privilege by asking students to engage with multimodal texts of varying languages and cultures.
Poems on the African Migrant Subject
I buried [her] in a field of lemongrass
Finalist
2024 Finalist for Autumn House Rising Water Prize
2024 CAAPP Book Prize
2023 Finalist for National Poetry Series
Work in Progress
Armor of Light
This manuscript explores the spiritual identity and faith that generations of Africans who moved to the United States used as a source of sustenance for their journey.
Work in Progress
Adinkra Symbols: The Language and Art of Akans in the Diaspora
This scholarly manuscript explores Adinkra symbols, which are indigenous to the Akans of Ghana (Asantes and Bono offer varying narratives about their origin), were brought to the United States via enslaved Akans in the eighteenth century and continue to be used by migrant African/ Black subjects to express and preserve African/Black identity.
In collaboration with LOATAD (Library of Africa and African Diaspora), I founded the Adinkra Poetry Prize. In its first year, this prize invited Ghanaian writers to submit poems that skillfully engaged with selected Adinkra symbols. My goal is to promote the sacred value of these symbols and their relevance as poetic expressions while raising awareness of their vast range and significance. Prior to the prize, I coordinated a comprehensive 5-day art and poetry workshop, providing participants with an immersive experience in Adinkra symbols and their cultural roots. The workshop culminated in a successful call for submissions. As All African Women's Poetry Festival activities, we awarded three winners and three runner-ups receiving a total of $600 as recognition for their outstanding poems. This initiative was made possible by the support of the UNH (University of New Hampshire) and the Mellon Foundation, who generously contributed to this public humanities project, allowing us to celebrate and uplift the vibrant voices of Ghanaian writers who engage with Adinkra symbols in their poetic expressions.
