Though set in Philadelphia, these poems... compel all readers to reflect upon their upbringings as well as the intricate puzzle of elements that shaped and sustained their lives.” - Tim Seibles

AVAILABLE FROM BEACON PRESS, BOOKSHOP.org & wherever books are sold.

“Migration Letters… is a gift and a machete.” - Destiny Crockett

“Drawn from her experiences of being born in Philadelphia, into a Black family and a Black culture transported from the American South by the Great Migration, M. Nzadi Keita’s poetry sparks a profoundly hybrid gaze of the visual and the sensory.”

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PRINT NEWS:

My personal essay, “My Kind,” appears in When We Exhale: An Anthology of Black Women Rooted in Ancestral Medicine. Available at blackfreighterpress.com and bookshop.org

“Ask the Lonely,” a poem in tribute to The Four Tops, appears in Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Motown Poetry Revue. Available at madvillepublishing.com and bookshop.org

UPCOMING EVENTS:

•  Black Cultural Heritage Fair & Celebration

  Parkway Central Free Library, 1901 Vine St., Phila. PA

  Feb 21, 1:00 - 4:00pm

• Free Library Independence Branch

  18 S. 7^th Street, Phila, PA

  Feb. 24, 5:00pm

• MIGRATION LETTERS at Poets House thru Feb. 28

  MIGRATION LETTERS is on display in NYC until Feb. 28 at the Poets' House Showcase, a free exhibition of poetry books published from 2024-25. Info: poetshouse.org/programs

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“One current poet, M. Nzadi Keita, has tried through literary imagination to give Anna a voice… Such poetry is not a historical source for Anna’s interior world. But it does provide us a language by which we can gaze into it.” David W. Blight author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

“How your bangs comb out sparks each day’s

happiness. Double-dutching

in plaid jumpers and knee socks.

Running through sprinklers, those

birdlike fingers foretell fringe.”

from Migration Letters:

“[Set for Chaka Khan: Yvette]”

Healing Verse

Germantown Art Project:

Coming Soon!

In Spring, ’26, “Ben,” a poem for my late brother, will appear in an innovative project by Healing Verse Germantown (HVG).  To cultivate peace and resistance against violence in Germantown and throughout Philadelphia, this project uses poetry and public art to engage Germantown residents in healing and will be a powerful outlet for collective expression.  HVG, a winner of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge grant, is supported by the City of Philadelphia through Creative Philadelphia.              

More info: healingversegermantown.com

Their faces conveyed the remote calm of people who were wide awake, caffeinated, and trained on an agenda.  Following their cues, I stuffed my expectation that we would ramp up with a few minutes of chat. … One of the consultants, the grant specialist, slouched on a divan with his eyes half-obscured by a black hoodie. He launched with a blunt-edged question that belied his utterly casual presentation: “What’s the central idea behind your LOA?”