SANKOFA TALKS: BLACK POETRY
Join writer, vocalist and performance/sound artist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, author of TwERK (Belladonna, 2013) alongside Black feminist writer, poet and performance artist Ra Malika Imhotep, author of gossypiin (Red Hen Press, Spring 2022), for our October talk commemorating Black Poetry Day.
The program can be viewed live on this webpage or on our Facebook or Youtube.
“Sankofa” is a West African word of the Akan tribe that translates to, “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”
Sankofa Talks is our platform to bring intergenerational conversations to the public. Through each talk we take time to retrieve and honor our Diaspora’s history, reflect on its contributions to our present and recognize the power it has to inform how we move forward into the future.
Black Poetry Day is commemorated on October 17th in honor of the first Black published author Jupiter Hammon and the contributions of Black poets past and present.
A writer, vocalist and performance/sound artist, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of TwERK (Belladonna, 2013). Diggs has presented and performed at California Institute of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio, The Museum of Modern Art, and Walker Art Center and at festivals including: Explore the North Festival, Leeuwarden, Netherlands; Hekayeh Festival, Abu Dhabi; International Poetry Festival of Copenhagen; Ocean Space, Venice; International Poetry Festival of Romania; Question of Will, Slovakia; Poesiefestival, Berlin; and the 2015 Venice Biennale. As an independent curator, artistic director, and producer, Diggs has presented events for BAMCafé, Black Rock Coalition, El Museo del Barrio, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the David Rubenstein Atrium. Diggs has received a 2020 C.D. Wright Award for Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Art, a Whiting Award (2016) and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship (2015), as well as grants and fellowships from Cave Canem, Creative Capital, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, among others. She lives in Harlem and teaches part-time at Brooklyn College and Stetson University.
Ra Malika Imhotep is a Black feminist writer, poet and performance artist from Atlanta, Georgia currently pursuing a PhD in African Diaspora Studies and New Media Studies from the University of California. As a scholar and cultural worker, Ra is invested in exploring relationships between queer Black femininities, Black vernacular cultures, and the performance of labor. As a steward of Black Studies and Black feminist thought, Ra dreams, organizes, and facilitates spaces of critical reflection and embodied spiritual-political education through The Church of Black feminist Thought and other collaborations. Ra is co-author of The Black Feminist Study Theory Atlas and author of gossypiin (Red Hen Press, Spring 2022).