Yalie Saweda Kamara

Writer, Professor & Poet Laureate of Cincinnati, Ohio

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Creative Writing (Poetry) & English Literature, University of Cincinnati, 2022

Dissertion: Besaydoo (poetry manuscript and critical essay)

Director: Professor Jennifer Glaser

Comprehensive Examination Areas: 20th & 21st Century Narrative Poetry of Migration and Exile; 20th & 21st Century Discourses of Migration, Diaspora, and Identity

Comprehensive Examinations Results: High Pass

MFA, Creative Writing (Poetry) Indiana University, 2018

Thesis: Loud Organs and Extraordinary Bones (poetry manuscript)

Director: Professor Ross Gay

M.A., French Culture & Civilization, Middlebury College, 2011

            Thesis (in French): Une Analyse de la légitimation du rap français comme forme d'art dans la société française/ An Analysis

of the Legitimization of French Rap as An Art Form in French Society

            Director: Professor Stéphanie Molinero

            Thesis Coursework Abroad: L'université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Paris, France, 2010-2011

 

B.A. Creative Writing (Creative Nonfiction) University of California, Riverside, 2008

B.A. Languages (Portuguese & French) University of California, Riverside, 2008

       Study Abroad:

  • Afro-Brazilian Studies & Portuguese, Associação de Cultura Brasil Estados Unidos, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 2005-2006        

  • Humanities & Portuguese, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2006

RESEARCH & TEACHING SPECIALIZATIONS

  • 20th and 21st Century Poetry

  • Community-Based Creative Practice

  • Comparative Literature

  • Hip Hop

  • Material Culture

  • Polyvocality

  • Postcolonial Studies

HONORS

Artistic

  • Poet Laureate Reappointment, City of Cincinnati & Mercantile Library, 2024-2025

  • Recipient, Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship Grant, 2023 ($50,000)

  • Winner, Besaydoo, Jake Adam York Poetry Prize, Copper Nickel and Milkweed Editions, 2023

  • Honorable Mention, “Besaydoo” Nina Riggs Poetry Award, Cave Wall Press, 2023

  • Winner, Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award, Meridiansfeminism, race, transnationalism, Smith College, 2023

  • Poet Laureate of Cincinnati, 2022-2024 (two-year term)

  • Featured Artist, Blink, A Festival of Light & Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2022

  • Featured Artist, FotoFocus Biennial, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2022

  • Featured Poet, Mayor’s State of the City, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2022

  • Semifinalist, Besaydoo, Cave Canem Poetry Prize, 2021

  • Featured Poem, “Besaydoo,” The Slowdown, 2021

  • Nominee, Best of the Net Anthology, “Besaydoo,” The Adroit Journal, 2021

  • Finalist, Besaydoo, National Poetry Series Competition, 2020

  • Featured Poet, Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, 2020

  • Nominee, The Pushcart Prize, “When Nina Simone Sings ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” JuxtaProse, 2021

  • Nominee, The Pushcart Prize, “Besaydoo,” (Independent Nomination), The Adroit Journal, 2021

  • Nominee, The Pushcart Prize, “Metaphors for My Two-Step” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, 2020

  • Feature, “Woke Africa’s Choice: 21 Best African Writers of the New Generation,” Woke Africa Magazine, 2018

  • Finalist, Brittle Paper Literature Prize for Poetry, 2017

  • Finalist, Brunel University African Poetry Prize, 2017

  • Finalist, “Besaydoo,” Best of Net, 2022

  • Semifinalist, Besaydoo (full-length manuscript), Cave Canem Poetry Prize, 2021

  • Finalist, Besaydoo (full-length manuscript), National Poetry Series Competition, 2020

  • Featured Poet, Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, 2020

  • Nominee, The Pushcart Prize, “When Nina Simone Sings ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” JuxtaProse, 2021

  • Nominee, The Pushcart Prize, “Besaydoo,” (Independent Nomination), The Adroit Journal, 2021

  • Nominee, The Pushcart Prize, “Metaphors for My Two-Step” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, 2020

  • Feature, “Woke Africa’s Choice: 21 Best African Writers of the New Generation,” Woke Africa Magazine, 2018

  • Finalist, Brittle Paper Literature Prize for Poetry, 2017

  • Finalist, Brunel University African Poetry Prize, 2017

Academic

  • Postdoctoral Diversity Fellow, Ithaca College, 2022 (declined)

•  Alice Bird Babb Named Scholar, Philanthropic Educational Organization, 2021-2022 ($20,000)

  • Taft Competitive Dissertation Fellow, University of Cincinnati, 2021-2022 ($20,000)

  • Albert C. Yates Fellow, University of Cincinnati, 2018-2022

  • Recipient, The English-Speaking Union Travel Grant, Cincinnati, 2020

  • Recipient, Taft Travel Grant, University of Cincinnati, 2019

  • Recipient, College of Arts & Humanities Travel Award, Indiana University, 2017

  • Louise McNutt Fellow, Indiana University, 2015-2016

  • French Graduate Studies Grantee, Middlebury College, 2010-2011

Teaching

•   Nominee, William C. Boyce Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Cincinnati, 2024

  • Nominee, William C. Boyce Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Cincinnati, 2023

  • Nominee, William C. Boyce Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Cincinnati, 2021

  • Nominee, Darwin T. Turner Scholars 2020 Breakfast of Champion Teacher, University of Cincinnati, 2020

ARTISTIC RESIDENCIES, WORKSHOPS, SCHOLARSHIPS & FELLOWSHIPS

  • Dakin Fellow, Sewanee Writers Conference, The University of the South, 2024

  • Resident, Djerassi Residents Artist Program, 2024

  • Workshop Participant, The Critical Poetics Summer School, Critical Poetics Research Group, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom (online), 2021

  • James Merrill Fellow, Vermont Studio Center, 2019

  • Scholarship Recipient, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, 2019

  • Resident, The Mastheads, 2019 (declined)

  • Resident, Vermont Studio Center, 2018 (declined)

  • Fellow, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, University of West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, 2017

  • Fellow, Emerging Critics Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle, 2017

  • Don Belton Memorial Scholar, Indiana University Writers Conference, 2016

ARTISTIC COMMISSIONS

o    Poetry:

  • “And the Word Was God,” Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, 2024

  •  “A Chant for Access,” Interact for Health, 2023

  • “I Give Praise to the Immigrant,” Cincinnati Compass, 2022

  • “An Ode to the Upstander,” The Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, 2022

o    Music (Librettist):

  • “Hear Us Hear Them Anthem,” Hear Us Hear Them Choral Ensemble. Musical score composed and arranged by Danielle Jagelski, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2023

PUBLICATIONS (for links to publications, please click here)

[Forthcoming] 

o    Interviews:

  • Julie Dash on the 25th Anniversary of Daughters of the Dust,” by Yalie Kamara and Michael T. Martin, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, 2025

  • “On the Representation of Black Women in the Cinematic: Deborah Riley Draper,” by Yalie Kamara and Michael T. Martin, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, 2025

  • “Jessie Maples and Women’s Labors: A Conversation,” by Yalie Kamara and Michael T. Martin, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, 2025

[Published]

o    Poetry Collections:

  •               Full length: Besaydoo (Milkweed Editions, 2024), winner of the 2023 Jake Adam York Prize

•       Selected Recognition:

•       Featured in “Newly Published” Column, New York Times Review of Books (print), 2024

•        Featured in “Reads for the Rest of Us: The Best Poetry of ’23-’24,” Ms. Magazine (digital), 2024

  • Chapbook: A Brief Biography of My Name, included in the 2018 New Generation African Poets Chapbook Box Set: Tano (Akashic Books/ African Poetry Book Fund, 2018)

•               Chapbook: When The Living Sing (Ledge Mule Press, 2017)

o   Edited Anthology:

  • What You Need to Know About Me: An Anthology of Youth Writings on Immigration, edited by Yalie Saweda Kamara (The Hawkins Project, 2022 )

o   Poetry Collections:

  • A Brief Biography of My Name (Akashic Books/African Poetry Book Fund, 2018)

  • When The Living Sing (Ledge Mule Press, 2017)

o   Poetry:

  • “Marshawn,” Prairie Schooner, 2024

  • “Grab Bay, May, 1998,” Copper Nickel, 2023

  • “A Mouthful,” Pleiades: Literature in Context, 2023

  • “During lunch, Ms. Anne says,” and "A Golden Shovel for My Friend Michael," The Journal, 2022

  • “Nia: 100 Blessings,” Post Road, 2022

  • “Unloosed,” World Literature Today, 2022

  • Besaydoo,” The Adroit Journal and Poetry Daily, 2020

  • “When Nina Simone Sings ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” JuxtaProse, 2020

  • In Our New Home,” and “Souvenir,” The Oxford Review of Books, 2020

  • Wahala,” Southern Indiana Review, 2019

  • Elegy for My Two Step,and “Metaphors for My Two Step,” “In the Year that the Trash Took Itself Out,” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, 2019

  • “Pest Control,” Poetry Society of America, 2018

  • “Oakland as Home, Home as Myth,” and “Eating Malombo in Freetown, 1989,” Indiana Public Media, 2018

  • “Soumission Chimique,” Popup Mag, 2017

  •  “New America,” Monster House Press Quarterly, 2017

  • “Haiku Love Letters for Gabby Douglas,” Wusgood.Black, 2016

  • “When I Ask My Brother Jonathan to Write About Oakland, He Describes His Room,” Amazon: Day One, 2016

  • “Rekia and Oscar and All of Their Sky Cousins,” Entropy Mag, 2016

  •  “Mother’s Rules,”Vinyl: Poetry & Prose, 2016

o   Interviews:

  • “Boots Riley on Sorry to Bother You and the Matter of the ‘Good Fight,’" by Michael T. Martin and Yalie Kamara, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Volume 11, Number 2 (Spring 2020), pp. 176-215

  • “On the Commerce of Intimacy: Dany Laferrière on How to Make Love to a Negro… and Heading South,” by Michael T. Martin and Yalie Kamara, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Volume 9, Number 1 (Fall 2017), pp. 80-105

o Literary Criticism:

  • “Joy and Pain, Sunshine and Rain, Exploring the Nuances of Janela Pineda’s Lineage of Rain,” Cincinnati Review, 2021

  Fiction:

  • “Your First Set of Seasons” Puerto Del Sol, 2017

  • “Mirror” The Blueshift Journal, 2017

  Creative Nonfiction

  • “Smile,” Being, Belonging and Becoming: An Introduction to Reading and Writing for College, Community College of Vermont, 2009

  Anthology Contributions:

  • “Home,” Don’t Look Now: Essays on What We Wished We’d Never Seen, The Ohio State University   Press, 2020 (Nonfiction)

  • “Le Champ Lexical #1: L’espoir [en 2020 c’est],” Urgencies=Insurgencies. California Poets, Volume One, edited by Forrest Gander, Nomadic Coffee, 2020 (Poetry)

  • A Haiku Love Letter for Gabby Douglas”, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Northwestern University Press, 2020 (Poetry)

  • “Mirror,” Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction Anthology, Aforementioned Productions, 2019 (Fiction)

o   Translations (French —> English)

  • “Manifesto of Ouagadougou, FESPACO,” Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Volume 12, Number 1 (Fall 2020), pp.479-483

  • “Benoît Ramampy (1947-1996): A Life Dedicated to Cinema” by Karine Blanchon, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Volume 8, Number 1 (Fall 2016), pp. 84-94

o   Music

  • Lyricist, “A Healing,” poetry/lyrics created for Mourning Jewels, a choral and orchestral dissertation, by Indiana University Jacobs School of Music doctoral candidate Sam Ritter, 2019

  • Vocalist, “Tract for Valerie Solanas,” from Matmos album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast (Matador Records, 2006)

TEACHING EXPERIENCE         

Teaching Assistant, Department of English, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

  • Digital Skills for Arts & Science Majors (Digital Humanities Course) (English 2199), Spring, 2021

Instructor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

  • Music and Poetry: Rap (English 3032), Fall, 2020

  • Introduction to Poetry (English 2017), Fall, 2019

  • English Composition (English 1001) Fall, 2018 & Spring, 2019

Instructor, Department of English, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

  • “Poetry and the Archives of Empathy,” Intermediate Poetry (English W203), Spring, 2018

Associate Instructor, Department of English, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

  • Introduction to Creative Writing, Poetry and Fiction (English W103), Fall, 2017, Spring, 2016, & Fall, 2015

Instructor, Youth Speaks, San Francisco, California

  • Queeriosity Poetry Workshop, 2012

English Language Lecturer, Department of English, L’université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne, Franc

  • English for Undergraduate Business Students, Spring 2010 & Fall, 2009

  • English for Undergraduate Humanities Students, Spring 2010 & Fall, 2009

  • English for Undergraduate Science Students, Spring 2010 & Fall, 2009

  • English for Graduate Math Students, Fall, 2009

  • English for Undergraduate Foreign Science Students, Fall, 2009

English Language Assistant, Department of English, Le Collège et Le Lycée Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne, France

  • Advanced English for High School Students, Spring 2009 & Fall, 2008

  • Intermediate English for Middle School Students, Spring 2009 & Fall, 2008

  • Beginning English for Middle School Students, Spring 2009 & Fall, 2008

  • Advanced English for Middle School Students, Spring 2009 & Fall, 2008

  • Intermediate English for Middle School Students, Spring 2009 & Fall, 2008

  • Beginning English for Middle School Students, Spring 2009 & Fall, 2008

  • English for High School Students, Spring 2009 & Fall, 2008

RESEARCH & EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE

  • Research Associate, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 2021-Present

  • Executive Editor, What You Need to Know About Me: An Anthology of Youth Writings on Immigration, The Hawkins Project, San Francisco, Ca., 2018-Present

  • Research Assistant & Assistant Editor, Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, Fall, 2016-Spring, 2021

  • Researcher, Unstitching the Past: A Digital Humanities Approach to Uncovering the Historical and Contemporary Relevance of the Kabaslot, Supervisor: Professor James Lee, Digital Scholarship Center, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, Spring, 2020

  • Research Assistant, Black Film Center/Archive (BFC/A), The Media School, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, Spring, 2016—Fall, 2017

  • Research Assistant, Invoking the Caribbean: Caribbean Theatre in the United States, Supervisor: Professor Vivian Halloran, American Studies Department, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, Fall, 2017

CONFERENCES

  • Panelist, Women Reclaim the Page: Generative Writing to Beat Burnout, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), Kansas City, Missouri, 2024

  • Panelist, Ten Years of the APBF: African Women Poets in The U.S. and Their Publication Journeys, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), Kansas City, Missouri, 2024

  • Panelist, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism Roundtable, Dissident Feminisms: The Inaugural bell hooks Symposium, Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, 2023

  • Panelist, The Power of Literary Citizenship, National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS) Convention, Columbus, Ohio, 2022

  • Panelist, Loss, Memory, Transformation: Women Poets and the Elegy, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), Virtual, 2021

  • Panelist, Dressing as Diasporic Identity: European and North American Perspectives on the Kabaslot, “Black In/Visibilities Contested," The Afroeuropeans Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 2019

  • Panelist, Linguistic Crossings: Creative Writing in English Language Acquisition, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) Conference, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2019

  • Moderator, “Puerto Rican Migrations, A Hundred Years of Migration (1917-2017): ‘Stories of Caribbean Exile and Diaspora,’” Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 2017

DEPARTMENTAL SERVICE

  • Committee Member, Arts and Sciences Dean’s 21st Century Task Force Committee (member), College of Arts and Sciences, University of Cincinnati, 2020

  • Organizer, “Where I’m From: WordPlay Cincy/Aiken New Technical High School Day of Poetry,” University of Cincinnati, 2019

  • Co-chair, Creative Writing MFA Recruitment Weekend, Department of English, Indiana University, 2016-2018

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

  • Board Member, Harriet Beecher Stowe House, 2024-present

  • Creative Writing Advisory Board Member, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Smith College, 2023-present

  • Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), USA, 2023-present

  • Ohio Poetry Association, Ohio, USA, 2022-present

  • Critical Poetics Research Group, Nottingham Trent University, UK, 2020-present

  • Creole Heritage Organization of California, US, 2018-present

  • Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), USA, 2016-presentt

LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

  • English: Fluent

  • French: Fluent

  • Krio: Fluent

  • Portuguese: Reading knowledge

 

REFERENCES & PDF VERSION OF CV AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST