Yalie Kamara

Photo credit: https://indianapublicmedia.org/profiles/poet-yalie-kamara.php

Yalie Saweda Kamara is a Sierra Leonean-American writer, educator, and researcher from Oakland, California and the 2022-2023 Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate (2-year term). A Taft Dissertation Completion Fellow and Philanthropic Educational Organization Named Scholar, she received her Ph.D. in Creative Writing (poetry) and English Literature at the University of Cincinnati.Kamara is the author of two collections of poetry, A Brief Biography of My Name (Akashic Books/African Poetry Book Fund, 2018), which is a part of the New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Tano) series and When The Living Sing (Ledge Mule Press, 2017) and the editor of the forthcoming anthology, What You Need to Know About Me: Youth Writers on Their Experiences of Migration (The Hawkins Project, 2022). Kamara has been a finalist for the National Poetry Series competition (2020) and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize (2017), and a semifinalist for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize (2021). She has received fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, the National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellow and Callaloo (poetry). Kamara has garnered Pushcart prize and Best of Net anthology nominations.In addition to being a featured poet at the 2020 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, Kamara's poetry, fiction, interviews, and translations have either appeared or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Callaloo, A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Black Camera: An International Journal, Puerto del Sol and elsewhere.She earned an MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) from Indiana University, Bloomington and an MA in French Culture and Civilization from Middlebury College.In between her studies, she worked in the field of social justice specializing in educational access and arts facilitation. She has lived in France, Brazil, and the US, and has a particularly soft spot for Oakland, Washington DC, Paris, and the Midwest.

Source: https://www.yaylala.com/bio

Live Readings

Go to 34:00 to hear "A Haiku Love Letter For Gabby Douglas"

Go to 35:14 to hear "New America"

Poems

Mother’s RulesFor my mother
I. If you see me praying in the living room, never sit in front of me. You are not God.
II. When we go to a restaurant and I don’t know any foods on the menu, never order me a meal that is spelled with silent letters. I came to eat, not to explore.
III. You didn’t make food. No. God, did. You cooked food. Watch your English. Watch your faith.
IV. Your Krio is offensive. When you speak, you sound like Shabba Ranks. Your accent is funny, but keep practicing. It is the only way we will be able to gossip in peace while at the supermarket.
V. Try to learn the language of your lover and his family. They could be smiling to your face and getting ready to trade you for 6 goats and 3 mules during your first trip to their homeland.
VI. If anyone stares at you for too long (more than 5 seconds), start speaking an imaginary language while maintaining eye contact. They will be the first to look away.
VII. Consider the consequence of purchasing human hair wigs, second hand clothing, and used furniture. Maybe you will feel beautiful, and also save money, but you never know whose bad luck or misfortune will be sitting on your head, body, or in the home in which you sleep. Buy what you can truly afford.
VIII. Your father’s Muslim, so you are too (1989-1993).
I am Christian, so you are too (1993-2012).I am Catholic now, but you keep praying (2012-present).
IX. You laugh at me now. Like I laughed at my mother. Like she laughed at hers. Like your daughters will laugh at you. And I will live long enough to forgive your folly.
X. Just make sure to pray.
Amen.
-from Vinyl: Poetry & Prose (August, 2016)

Space At the age of 7, a letter was plucked from my nameas a test to see who would catch the error. To see who’d care enough to go search for the restof me. For about 4 months, my name appeared as Yal eon the page. A part of me wonders why some names are sweeter than others—the nectar that pools at the base of our memory. Would anyone let ssabelle, Rchard, Elzabeth,or Snclar escape from the 9^th letter of the alphabet? Me and my broken name, less heavy than before,began to float away to somewhere else. No search party was sent to check between themonkey bars, under the desks, my cubby, or the palms of my hands. There was no red pento correct the flaw. Nobody else played the game, so there’s norecord of the joyful sound that was made when the long, lost, me found the small, brown, I.
from When the Living Sing

Recommended Title

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse