When you are writing, no one on the page says you don’t belong and it becomes a place where you feel completely safe and vulnerable. There’s a certain placeness that comes with writing, existing in that space where you are here and there and here, and it’s a home for some people. – Tiwaladeoluwa Adekunle

I attempted to write toward joy (beloved, here’s my confession), I wrote the saddest poems I have ever written. But the other truth about those poems is that there are bursts of joy all around them, and such is life – joy here and there, but also despair. – Henneh Kyereh Kwaku

So many mythical associations of softness and fragility are placed on women and those of fem orientations; it is no wonder the beasts in life are stunned when those same group of people turn around and begin to fight for better circumstances, exhausted by the imposition to be soft and to make concessions all the time. – Jarred Thompson

Death is such an interesting individual experience; everyone goes through it, but we all do it alone. And being able to make that experience both individual and yet in touch with the community and people, in the ceremony and the rituals of death and dying, is life-affirming. – Khadija Abdalla Bajaber

A lot of writing is about self-questioning – who are we writing for? what is our responsibility? to ourselves? to an idea? is it even helpful to think of these questions as having static answers? – Fahad Al-Amoudi

We’ve been given English in a way, but we’ve also made it our own in so many different ways to not uphold this essentialist idea of the colonizer’s tongue versus the “pure” mother tongue. – Nermeen Hegazi

The kind of play, between broader imagery and more detailed intimate moments, is often a natural element of world building when I write. This kind of perspective-play adds texture and layers, expresses the story to the reader from different heights. It scaffolds the expanse of what home can mean. – Akosua Afiriyie-Hwedie

I’d say this: poets and creatives are real persons, with real personalities and interests. “Poet” is more than an abstract designation. We have homes. When our homes are threatened, we come out to fight too. – Chiagozem Confidence Jideofor

A poem is a voice when you’re here alive; it becomes an echo when you are dead. The thing is we are all edging towards attentiveness as poets, we are constantly saying to the world, “here is language” and the world holds up this language acknowledging its effect. This can’t be done without attentiveness, even if the attentiveness is minute.
– Nome Emeka Patrick

There is a force to poetry, one that is so sure of itself in what needs to be said, and how. Perhaps this is something that comes after language, after words. – Michelle Angwenyi

It’s like reading a story so familiar and finding it has a different ending. For so long, our work was mired in trauma and we only did the work of seeing it and naming it. -Gloria Kiconco

Writing, to me, has become a sort of engagement that reassures me of life and the beauty of imagination, while validating my experiences and that of others in our collective struggle to make sense of life in all its glories and shortcomings. I write because my thoughts are better expressed in writing. I love the art and craft of writing, of listening to and sometimes questioning the voices in my mind. – Echezonachukwu Nduka