M. Nzadi Keita

M. Nzadi Keita’s new poetry collection, Migration Letters, forthcoming from Beacon Press in April, 2024, centers her upbringing in Black working-class Philadelphia. Her second book, Brief Evidence of Heaven, shed light on free-born, illiterate abolitionist, Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’s first wife. Publications including Poet Lore and anthologies such as The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, have featured Keita’s poems. Her prose publications include the journal About Place, and the volume, Women, Culture, and The Sixties. 

Keita served as a Professor of English at Ursinus College for 25 years, an adviser to the award-winning film, “BadddDDD Sonia Sanchez,” and a consultant with the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Foundation and Mural Arts Philadelphia. A recipient of grants (incl. WOO '01, ACG '14) and fellowships, she has presented poetry and scholarship in varied settings, including the Modern Language Association International Conference and the National Caucus of African-American Librarians.

M. Nzadi will facilitate a multi-week personal writing workshop for youth and adults living in Germantown, called The Toni Cade Bambara/Germantown Stories Project.  Using exercises and images, this workshop will teach self-expression, regard for social history, and will reflect what the writers value about Germantown. Collectively, the writers will seek ways to share the work that stimulates vision and action.