Do you know the leading African Contemporary poets? Check them out!

Poetry is one deep of means of expression that we have come to accept. Poets are great minds who can clearly bring out the world inside them outside with well-crafted words. Africa boasts some globally renowned poets. But do you know the leading contemporary African poets? Let us take a look at some of the great champions of African poetry.

1. Warsan Shire

Warsan Shire is a Somalian poet doubling up as a writer who has her base in London. She is more famous for her poetry which Beyonce adapts into her album Lemonade. Her poetry sheds more lights on culture, war, sex, gender and other fundamental human issues. Famous among her works are “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, Our Men Do Not Belong to Us. Sometimes she digs deeper into her experience to connect with the travails of the forced immigrant who has to acceptably live under the pangs of pains and sees his basic human rights as luxuries if any is afforded him. Warsan is always going places with her poetry having been named the unprecedented Young Poet Laureate for London as well as a poet-in-residence for Queensland.

2. Nayyirah Waheed

Nayyirah Waheed bases in the U.S. She has a deep engrossment with poetry becoming emotionally attached to poetry as early as 11 years. Among her most popular works are “Salt” and Nejma”. She yearns to plant a positive impression on people with her poetic works that betters her audience.

3. Safia Elhillo

Safia Elhillo stays in Washington. However she is Sudanese poet and an NYU graduate. Safia proudly ranks as one of the foremost African contemporary poets having clinched prizes like 2015 Brunel University African Poetry Prize, and winner of the 2016 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. She famously boasts a Pushcart Prize nomination. Her poetry career has so blossomed with Safia gloriously featuring in a host of anthologies and journals such as the “The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop”.  So global has her work spread that her poems are translated across other languages.

4. Lebo Mashile

Lebo is from South African. Lebo is one of Africa’s biggest poetic export. However, following the emancipation of South Africa from apartheid in the 1990s, she comes home. She is globally acclaimed for some of her revolutionary works like “In a Ribbon of Rhythm” which she released in 2005 and “Flying Above the Sky”, which she released three years later. Lebo has also multiplied her abilities also. In addition to poetry, she has been credited with dripping into acting and film directing. She memorably had her face in the 2004 hit film with Don Cheadle “Hotel Rwanda”. Mashile sees poetry a unique vehicle of expression. She sees poetry as her own spatula with which she could turn and stir public opinion and cultural paradigms.

5. Koleka Putuma

Koleka Putuma

Koleka Putuma is quite a step out of the normal. Koleka is an energetic passionate performing poet. Her famous poem “Water” had her bagging the projects and interfaith programs in the Cape Town area. Her poem titled “Water” earned her PEN SA Student Writing Prize . She is actually based in Cape Town where she generously partakes in writing and dialogue workshops at community projects schools, as well as interfaith programs in the Cape Town area. She founded Velvet Spine back in 2014, a theater company along with a partner for up-and-coming female artists. This is because of the upheavals these artist face in grooming their careers.

Finally, there we are taking a peep at some of the leading African contemporary poets. Africa keeps turning up the right talents in the right spot.