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, Meridians: feminism, 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
o Fiction:
“Your First Set of Seasons” Puerto Del Sol, 2017
“Mirror” The Blueshift Journal, 2017
o Creative Nonfiction
“Smile,” Being, Belonging and Becoming: An Introduction to Reading and Writing for College, Community College of Vermont, 2009
o 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