Wed., July 7 at 6 PM online here
Next in the NMPPMP Summer 2021 Series will be two exceptional women who are engaged in creating and writing outstanding poetry on Wed., July 7 at 6 PM. Presented in partnership with the Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project, poets Afia Ansong and Jacqueline Johnson will share their poetry and discuss their creative process. Through their work, they help us to question and explore themes of identity, transition, and belonging. The event is hosted online by the Redwood Library and Athenaeum.
Afia Ansong is a Ghanain American scholar and artist who writes poetry and teaches contemporary and traditional West African dance, she writes about the challenges of the African immigrant identity in the United States, exploring themes of transition, citizenship, and identity.
She is a 2015 and 2018 recipient of the Bronx Recognizes its Own Award Her work can be seen or is forthcoming in FOLIO, TAB, The Seventh Wave, PUBLIC POOL, Vinyl, Main Review, joINT, Frontier, and others.
Jacqueline Johnson is a multi-disciplinary artist creating poetry, fiction, and fiber arts, and is the winner of the Third Annual White Pine Press Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in: “Show Us Your Papers,” on Main Street Rag Press, 2020, “Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era,” Routledge 2020, “About Place Journal”, the “Langston Hughes Review,” and The Slow Down, American Public Media, October 16, 2019. She is currently writing a novel, The Privilege of Memory, and How to Stop a Hurricane, a collection of short stories. She is a graduate of New York University and the City University of New York. A native of Philadelphia, PA., she resides in Brooklyn, New York.
The Newport Middle Passage Port Marker Project is a local nonprofit organization whose goal is to bring to light the full rich scope of Aquidneck Island’s history. We plan to place a memorial in Liberty Square to commemorate the lives of Africans brought to our shores through the Middle Passage and to honor their descendants who have contributed much to the growth of our city, our state, and our country.
