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.
In Trace Evidence, Charif Shanahan meditates on mixed-race identity, queer desire, time, and the legacies of anti-Blackness in the US and abroad. D.M. Aderibigbe traverses poetic forms in 82nd Division to create a love song to his native Nigeria and explore the imprint of British colonialism. In Gestuary (tr. Nancy Naomi Carlson), Sylvie Kandé offers a collection of gestures that fracture the flow of time, such as Senegalese riflemen from World War I juxtaposed with migrants at the border who sew their lips shut in protest over immigration policies.
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.
