fiction.wikisort.org - Writer

Porsha Olayiwola is an African-American poet.[2][3][4] In 2019 she was appointed the Poet laureate of Boston.[5][6] Her first poetry collection, i shimmer sometimes, too was released in 2019 by Button Poetry.[6][7] In 2020 her work was included in the exhibition Women Take the Floor at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[8][9]

Porsha Olayiwola
Born	Chicago[1]
Occupation	Poet Laureate of Boston
Alma mater	Emerson College[1]
Website
porshaolayiwola.com

Of Nigerian descent (her father being a Yoruba man from Lagos), Olayiwola was born in Chicago. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in African American Studies and Gender and Women Studies from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and an MFA from Emerson College.[1]

Awards

She is the 2014 individual World Poetry Slam champion and the 2015 National Poetry Slam champion.[10][4] She won a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets in 2020.[1]

Works

Poetry collection

• i shimmer sometimes, too Button Poetry, 2019. ISBN 978-1943735457

Poems

• “How To Make Yourself Small.” Up The Staircase Quarterly, February 2017. [11]
• “Notorious,” Poetry, 2019.[12]
• “Twerk Villanelle,” Poetry, 2019.[13]
• “The Electric Slide Is Not A Dance!” Poetry, 2019.[14]
• “Twerk Villanelle,” Redivider Journal August 2019.[15]
• “Listen: My Right Hand is Covered in Blood” Redivider Journal August 2019.[15]
• “Had My Parents Not Been Separated After My Father’s Traffic Stop, Arrest and Deportation” Redivider Journal August 2019.[15]
• “Boston Ode” City of Boston. January 2019.[16]
• “If You Tell It Backward,” Poetry, 2021.[17]
• “We Drink At The Attenuation Well” Poetry, 2020.[18]
• “Chaste Duplex,” Triquarterly Issue 160: Black Voices, Triquarterly Press, 2021.[19]
• “Enquiry into The Lineage of Watermelons,” Triquarterly Issue 160: Black Voices, Triquarterly Press, 2021.[20]
• “Bring Me The Body,” Wildness: Issue No. 25, Wildness Press, February 2021.[21]
• “The Cops Behind Us, I Hold My Breath,” Wildness: Issue No. 25, Wildness Press, February 2021.[22]

Articles

• "I was born on the South Side of Chicago. Boston is where I came of age," Boston Globe, February 18, 2021.[23]

References

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