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The Africa Institute of Global Studies University (GSU), Sharjah hosts a virtual gathering of Afro-Arab poets and translators to celebrate World Poetry Day on Thursday, March 21, 2024, from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM GST.
The event will showcase poetry in English, Arabic, Amharic, Hausa, and Kiswahili – celebrating African languages that our faculty teach and study, and the importance of poetry within the communities where these languages are spoken.
We have invited poets from around the continent and the diaspora to share their poems alongside the literary translators who have brought their work to English readers and audiences, engaging in a wide-ranging conversation about the nature of poetry.
Poetry as an art form is universal—a form of aesthetic practice usually evoking strong feelings and emotions on audiences and readers. Poetry epitomizes universal linguistic diversity, while still bringing us together under shared values and common humanity. In 1999, during the 30th General Conference in Paris, UNESCO chose March 21 of every year to be “The World Poetry Day”, to support linguistic diversity through poetic expressions and increase the opportunity for endangered languages to be preserved, celebrated, and shared.
The Africa Institute (GSU) is delighted to host celebrated poets Alhan Islam, Abdilatif Abdalla, Husam Alshdaifat, and Mihret Kebede as well as esteemed translators Dr. Annmarie Drury, Associate Professor and Associate Chair Department of English, University of Queens; Dr. Aliyu Falalu Sani, Al-Azhar University, Egypt; Carmen McCain, Lecturer of African Cultural Studies in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Linguistics, SOAS and Semeneh Ayalew Asfaw, Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow, The Africa Institute (GSU). The program will be moderated by Meg Arenberg, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at The Africa Institute (GSU).
Mihret Kebede is a multi-disciplinary artist and poet, renowned as a co-founder of Tobiya Poetic Jazz, Netsa Art Village Artists Collective, and the Addis International Video Art Festival. She graduated with distinction from Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts and Design in painting in 2007. In 2016, she earned her MA in Arts from the same institution. She was honored with a certificate of recognition from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2013. Kebede’s artistic journey spans numerous local and international art exhibitions, workshops, poetry performances, and cross-cultural collaborative projects. Beyond her artistic pursuits, she is celebrated for her pivotal role in organizing both local and international art events and festivals. Her works and essays have been featured in Wax and Gold: Poetry Jazz, published by Institute für Raumexperimente/Studio Olafur Eliasson, and Tobiya Poetic Jazz, Stille Macht Decolonizing Silence, as well as Modernist Art in Ethiopia. Additionally, her works have been showcased in esteemed publications such as The Washington Square Review, Poetry International, Lyrikline House of Poetry, World Literature Today, Lichtungen – Zeitschrift für Literatur, Circumference Magazine, Poetica7 Cologne University, and the first-ever anthology of Amharic poetry in English, Songs We Learn from Trees, published by Carcanet Press. Currently, Kebede is a Ph.D. candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Semeneh Ayalew Asfaw is currently a Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies at The Africa Institute, Sharjah (GSU). He is also affiliated with the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University as a Lecturer and Researcher. Read more.
Husam Alshdaifat is a Jordanian poet who obtained his degree in medicine. He currently works at the Ministry of Health in Jordan. He is the recipient of the Young Creative Writers Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture in Jordan. Additionally, he has participated in the Sharjah Poetry Festival and various poetry events outside of Jordan. He has also published his collection of poems under the Department of Sharjah Culture, titled “A Young Man Waving at the Questions.”
Aliyu Falalu Sani is a Ph.D. candidate at the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. He has recently actively participated in various international conferences in the realms of Translation and Simultaneous Interpretation.
Alhan Islam, is a multi-award-winning internationally renowned Nigerian poet, and spoken word artist, with over a decade of experience in storytelling. She has reached over 4 million people through her art and her initiative True My Voice, mentoring over half a million young Nigerian storytellers. She is a UN peacekeeping advocate, Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, and former campaign coordinator for Change.org in Nigeria. Her captivating performances blend artistry with advocacy, tackling social injustices and celebrating cultural heritage with piercing critiques and lyrical storytelling. As a leading figure in the Nigerian spoken word scene, Alhan Islam has graced prestigious platforms like the Aké Arts and Book Festival, COP28, Reaching the Last Mile Forum, Global Citizen, African Union, and even the United Nations General Assembly to mention a few. Beyond the stage, Alhan Islam is the founder of Creative Cultural Revival an initiative that serves as a leverage for creative and cultural projects consciously integrating the Sustainable Development Goals. She quests for inspiring creativity by harnessing the power of creativity and repurposing cultural elements to address societal challenges across the African continent and the globe at large.
Carmen McCain is a lecturer in African Cultural Studies in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Linguistics at SOAS, University of London, with research interests in Nigerian literature, film, and Hausa cultural production. She authored the book Boko Haram with Brandon Kendhammer and is a former columnist with the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust.
Abdilatif Abdalla, a Kenyan writer and political activist, composed the poems in “Sauti ya Dhiki” during solitary confinement, earning him the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1972. Following this recognition, he moved to Tanzania in exile, where he served as a senior researcher on Kiswahili at the University of Dar es Salaam and contributed to editing a Kiswahili dictionary. In 1979, Abdalla relocated to London, working for the BBC Swahili department and later editing the news magazine “Africa Events.” His only English-language poem, “Peace, Love, and Unity for Whom?,” published in 1988, was a response to an attempt by Daniel Arap Moi’s government to bribe Abdalla into ceasing his collaboration with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Since then, Abdalla has taught Kiswahili at Leipzig University.
Annmarie Drury is a scholar and poet, and a translator of Kiswahili poetry. Her books include poetic translations of Euphrase Kezilahabi in Stray Truths: Selected Poems of Euphrase Kezilahabi (Michigan State University Press, 2015); and the monograph Translation as Transformation in Victorian Poetry (Cambridge UP, 2015). Many of her poems and translations have appeared in The Paris Review, Raritan, and Modern Poetry in Translation. She is an Associate Professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York, where she specializes in Victorian literature and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation. Her most recent work is The Imaginative Vision of Abdilatif Abdalla’s Voice of Agony, where she edited the English translation by Ken Walibora Waliaula and the book’s critical essays.
Meg Arenberg is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of Humanities and the African Languages and Translation Program at The Africa Institute (GSU). She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University Bloomington in 2016. Arenberg is a scholar of 20th and 21st-century African literatures with particular research interests in intertextuality, Kiswahili poetics, translation studies, and digital media. Read more.
The Africa Institute of Global Studies University (GSU), Sharjah hosts a virtual gathering of Afro-Arab poets and translators to celebrate World Poetry Day on Thursday, March 21, 2024, from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM GST.
The Africa Institute of Global Studies University (GSU), Sharjah hosts a virtual gathering of Afro-Arab poets and translators to celebrate World Poetry Day on Thursday, March 21, 2024, from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM GST.
The event will showcase poetry in English, Arabic, Amharic, Hausa, and Kiswahili – celebrating African languages that our faculty teach and study, and the importance of poetry within the communities where these languages are spoken.
We have invited poets from around the continent and the diaspora to share their poems alongside the literary translators who have brought their work to English readers and audiences, engaging in a wide-ranging conversation about the nature of poetry.
Poetry as an art form is universal—a form of aesthetic practice usually evoking strong feelings and emotions on audiences and readers. Poetry epitomizes universal linguistic diversity, while still bringing us together under shared values and common humanity. In 1999, during the 30th General Conference in Paris, UNESCO chose March 21 of every year to be “The World Poetry Day”, to support linguistic diversity through poetic expressions and increase the opportunity for endangered languages to be preserved, celebrated, and shared.
The Africa Institute (GSU) is delighted to host celebrated poets Alhan Islam, Abdilatif Abdalla, Husam Alshdaifat, and Mihret Kebede as well as esteemed translators Dr. Annmarie Drury, Associate Professor and Associate Chair Department of English, University of Queens; Dr. Aliyu Falalu Sani, Al-Azhar University, Egypt; Carmen McCain, Lecturer of African Cultural Studies in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Linguistics, SOAS and Semeneh Ayalew Asfaw, Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow, The Africa Institute (GSU). The program will be moderated by Meg Arenberg, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at The Africa Institute (GSU).
Mihret Kebede is a multi-disciplinary artist and poet, renowned as a co-founder of Tobiya Poetic Jazz, Netsa Art Village Artists Collective, and the Addis International Video Art Festival. She graduated with distinction from Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts and Design in painting in 2007. In 2016, she earned her MA in Arts from the same institution. She was honored with a certificate of recognition from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2013. Kebede’s artistic journey spans numerous local and international art exhibitions, workshops, poetry performances, and cross-cultural collaborative projects. Beyond her artistic pursuits, she is celebrated for her pivotal role in organizing both local and international art events and festivals. Her works and essays have been featured in Wax and Gold: Poetry Jazz, published by Institute für Raumexperimente/Studio Olafur Eliasson, and Tobiya Poetic Jazz, Stille Macht Decolonizing Silence, as well as Modernist Art in Ethiopia. Additionally, her works have been showcased in esteemed publications such as The Washington Square Review, Poetry International, Lyrikline House of Poetry, World Literature Today, Lichtungen – Zeitschrift für Literatur, Circumference Magazine, Poetica7 Cologne University, and the first-ever anthology of Amharic poetry in English, Songs We Learn from Trees, published by Carcanet Press. Currently, Kebede is a Ph.D. candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Semeneh Ayalew Asfaw is currently a Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies at The Africa Institute, Sharjah (GSU). He is also affiliated with the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University as a Lecturer and Researcher. Read more.
Husam Alshdaifat is a Jordanian poet who obtained his degree in medicine. He currently works at the Ministry of Health in Jordan. He is the recipient of the Young Creative Writers Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture in Jordan. Additionally, he has participated in the Sharjah Poetry Festival and various poetry events outside of Jordan. He has also published his collection of poems under the Department of Sharjah Culture, titled “A Young Man Waving at the Questions.”
Aliyu Falalu Sani is a Ph.D. candidate at the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. He has recently actively participated in various international conferences in the realms of Translation and Simultaneous Interpretation.
Alhan Islam, is a multi-award-winning internationally renowned Nigerian poet, and spoken word artist, with over a decade of experience in storytelling. She has reached over 4 million people through her art and her initiative True My Voice, mentoring over half a million young Nigerian storytellers. She is a UN peacekeeping advocate, Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, and former campaign coordinator for Change.org in Nigeria. Her captivating performances blend artistry with advocacy, tackling social injustices and celebrating cultural heritage with piercing critiques and lyrical storytelling. As a leading figure in the Nigerian spoken word scene, Alhan Islam has graced prestigious platforms like the Aké Arts and Book Festival, COP28, Reaching the Last Mile Forum, Global Citizen, African Union, and even the United Nations General Assembly to mention a few. Beyond the stage, Alhan Islam is the founder of Creative Cultural Revival an initiative that serves as a leverage for creative and cultural projects consciously integrating the Sustainable Development Goals. She quests for inspiring creativity by harnessing the power of creativity and repurposing cultural elements to address societal challenges across the African continent and the globe at large.
Carmen McCain is a lecturer in African Cultural Studies in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Linguistics at SOAS, University of London, with research interests in Nigerian literature, film, and Hausa cultural production. She authored the book Boko Haram with Brandon Kendhammer and is a former columnist with the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust.
Abdilatif Abdalla, a Kenyan writer and political activist, composed the poems in “Sauti ya Dhiki” during solitary confinement, earning him the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1972. Following this recognition, he moved to Tanzania in exile, where he served as a senior researcher on Kiswahili at the University of Dar es Salaam and contributed to editing a Kiswahili dictionary. In 1979, Abdalla relocated to London, working for the BBC Swahili department and later editing the news magazine “Africa Events.” His only English-language poem, “Peace, Love, and Unity for Whom?,” published in 1988, was a response to an attempt by Daniel Arap Moi’s government to bribe Abdalla into ceasing his collaboration with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Since then, Abdalla has taught Kiswahili at Leipzig University.
Annmarie Drury is a scholar and poet, and a translator of Kiswahili poetry. Her books include poetic translations of Euphrase Kezilahabi in Stray Truths: Selected Poems of Euphrase Kezilahabi (Michigan State University Press, 2015); and the monograph Translation as Transformation in Victorian Poetry (Cambridge UP, 2015). Many of her poems and translations have appeared in The Paris Review, Raritan, and Modern Poetry in Translation. She is an Associate Professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York, where she specializes in Victorian literature and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation. Her most recent work is The Imaginative Vision of Abdilatif Abdalla’s Voice of Agony, where she edited the English translation by Ken Walibora Waliaula and the book’s critical essays.
Meg Arenberg is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of Humanities and the African Languages and Translation Program at The Africa Institute (GSU). She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University Bloomington in 2016. Arenberg is a scholar of 20th and 21st-century African literatures with particular research interests in intertextuality, Kiswahili poetics, translation studies, and digital media. Read more.
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