Poetry brings a personal, emotional, and artistic lens to the historical record. It can bridge the past and present, offering startling insights and unexpected connections.
D.M. Aderibigbe traverses poetic forms in 82nd Division to create a love song to his native Nigeria while exploring the imprint of British colonialism. In Gestuary (tr. Nancy Naomi Carlson), Sylvie Kandé offers a collection of gestures that fracture the flow of time, from Senegalese riflemen in World War I to contemporary migrants protesting immigration policies. In Heed the Hollow, Malcolm Tariq explores Blackness, sexuality, and the American South, where queer desire and ancestral voices converge to reckon with histories of trauma, memory, and longing.
Join us as Nigerian-American poet and writer Hafizah Augustus Geter (The Black Period) leads a discussion with these lauded poets about their reckonings with history, blackness and belonging in different cultural contexts, and the art of poetry.
