Yalie Saweda Kamara

Writer, Professor & Poet Laureate of Cincinnati, Ohio

Publications

forthcoming works:

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 works:

poetry collection:

Besaydoo, Milkweed Editions, 2024

anthology:

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

Chapbooks

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

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

Poetry

“Marshawn,” Prairie Schooner, 2024

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

“During lunch, Ms. Anne says,” The Journal, 2022

"A Golden Shovel for My Friend Michael," The Journal, 2022

Memorializing Nia Wilson: 100 Blessings,” Post Road, 2022

Freeborn,” World Literature Today, March, 2022

Besaydoo,” Poetry Daily, November, 2020

Besaydoo,” The Adroit Journal, August, 2020

Listening to Nina Simone Sing ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,'JuxtaProse Magazine, July, 2020

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

Wahala: A Curse Has Many Heads,” Southern Indiana Review, November, 2019

Elegy for My Two Step,” “Metaphors for My Two Step,” and “When the Trash Took Itself Out,” Callaloo A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, February, 2019

Eleven New-Generation African PoetsPoetry Society of America, March, 2018

Kyrie Irving Explains the Flat EarthFreezeRay Poetry, November, 2017

Soumission Chimique, Popup Mag, June, 2017

New America,” Monster House Press Quarterly, April, 2017

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

When I Ask My Brother Jonathan To Write About Oakland, He Describes His RoomAmazon: Day One, Issue 3.50, October, 2016

Rekia and Oscar and All of Their Sky Cousins Entropy Mag, September, 2016

Mother’s Rules Vinyl: Poetry & Prose, August, 2016

fiction 

 “Your First Set of Seasons,” Black Voices Series, Puerto Del Sol, November, 2017

Mirror The Blueshift Journal, Issue VIII, September, 2017

NONFICTION

“Home,” Don’t Look Now: Things We Wish We’d Never Seen (The Ohio State University Press, October, 2020)

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

literary criticism:

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

anthology contributions

Poetry:

“Declarations Over Your Life,” Wheatley at 250: Black Women Poets Re-imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters, Edited by Danielle Legros Georges and Artress Bethany White, Pangyrus Literary Magazine, 2024

“Besaydoo,” A Flame Called Indiana: An Anthology of Contemporary Hoosier Writing, Case, Paul Doug, Indiana University Press, 2023

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

“A Haiku Love Letter for Gabby Douglas,” Furious Flower Anthology (Northwestern University Press, 2019)

Fiction:

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

Interviews

Boots Riley on I’m Sorry to Bother You and the Matter of the ‘Good Fight,” by Michael T. Martin with Yalie Kamara, Black Camera: An International Journal, Indiana University Press, Vol. 11, No. 2, Spring, 2020

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 Journal, Indiana University Press, Vol. 9, No. 1, Fall, 2017                                                                               

TRANSLATIOns

Manifesto of Ouagadougou,  FESPACOBlack Camera: An International Journal, Indiana University Press, Vol. 9., No. 1, Fall, 2017

Benoît Ramampy (1947-1996): A Life Dedicated to Cinema” by Dr. Karine Blanchon, Black Camera: An International Journal, Indiana University Press, Vol. 8, No. 1, Fall, 2016

Editorial ASsISTANCE

“The Practice of Curating the June Givanni Pan African Cinema Archive: A Conversation with the Founding Director,” by Michael T. Martin, Black Camera: An International Journal, Indiana University Press, Vol. 11, No. 1, Fall, 2019

“Close-Up: On the Colony's Postcolony Encounter in Claire Denis's Chocolat and White Material” by Michael T. Martin, Black Camera: An International Journal, Indiana University Press, Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall 2018

Archival NotesBlack Camera: An International Journal, Indiana University Press, Vol. 8, No. 2, Spring 2017

Music

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

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