Happy National Poetry Month!
I hope that you have started the month with interesting poetry to read and events to participate in. Today, I want to highlight Jamaican poet and memoirist, Safiya Sinclair. Safiya was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Her chapbook of poems and essays, Catacombs, was published by Argos Books in 2011.
Her debut poetry collection, Cannibal (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), won the Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Metcalf Award, the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry. It was also a finalist for the Pen America Literary Award, longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the American Library Association selected it as one of its Notable Books of the Year. Impressive! Safiya's other well-deserved awards are too numerous to mention.
I am now reading Safiya's critically acclaimed memoir, How to Say Babylon (Simon & Schuster, 2023). Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.
I would love your feedback on what you are currently reading, whether you have read any of Safiya's works, and how you plan to celebrate poetry month.
