Poetics of the African Diaspora
Where Poetry, Purpose, and Diaspora Speak
Strong in the Broken Places was born from a deep need for strength, community, and creative connection during the isolation of the pandemic. What began as a yearning for dialogue and solidarity quickly grew into a transcontinental movement—one that celebrates the healing and transformative power of poetry across the African Diaspora.
At its core, this initiative is about poetry—its ability to incite as much as it inspires, to provoke as well as to soothe, to protest as urgently as it consoles. Poetry has served as our crucible: nurturing broken spirits, challenging injustice, and carrying ancestral wisdom into the present.
A Digital Sanctuary for Diasporic Poets & Truth-Tellers
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s timeless words, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places,” I invited colleagues into a virtual gathering space. Our first Zoom session became a fireside of the spirit, alive with meditation, songs of freedom, political poetics, and passionate discourse. Marcus Waters chaired with vision, while Opal Palmer Adisa affirmed her conviction that words make a difference. Teju Adisa-Farrar embodied poetry as performance pedagogy, confronting inequity and offering catharsis. Emily Zobel Marshall deepened our reflection through post-colonial insights, while Juleus Ghunta lifted the voices of children, and Geoffrey Philp rooted us in the archipelagic imagination. Together, we affirmed that poetry can heal, disrupt, and transform.
As the circle widened, the deeper truth emerged: Africa’s influence pulses across the globe, uniting communities through cultural continuities essential to survival. In this shared space, we asked daring questions: How do we cross into worlds not yet written? What happens at the borderlines of identity and memory? How can we use language to both resist and renew?
The 2025 series carried this vision further, with a focus on ancestral reclamation. Sessions such as Reclaiming Roots Through Wisdom and Words, Dub Poetry: Cultural Resonance and Responsibility, Revolutionizing the Ancestors, and Resistance & Subversion highlighted poetry as a vessel of ancestral power. Featured poets demonstrated how verse honors the ancestors and advances their wisdom into present struggles and future possibilities.
Today, Strong in the Broken Places continues to grow as a global writing collaborative—a circle of literary warriors committed to writing truth into history. We remain intentional in using poetry to inspire and to incite, to question and to answer, to wound and to heal. Through this community, we carry forward the inheritance of ancestral wisdom, proving that even in brokenness, strength is reborn.
Poetry From Across the Globe: The Rhythm of Resistance and Radiance
Watch, listen, and feel the soul of the Diaspora through the poets’ voice (See You Tube channel for Pilgrimage Jamaica, Welcome Me Back Home and Jamaica Strong).
Featured Poets
Dedication. Expertise. Passion.
Welcome to Strong in the Broken Places, a global gathering where voices of the African Diaspora rise in strength and solidarity. Here you'll find community, creativity, and the shared experience of transforming brokenness into brilliance.
Opal Palmer Adisa
Dr. Palmer Adisa is a celebrated Jamaican-born poet, novelist, performance artist, educator, and cultural activist. She is the founder of the Adisa Ancestry Artists Residency (AAAR) in Jamaica which offers Caribbean writers and visual artists creative space and ancestral inspiration in a setting honoring literary icons like Claude McKay and Louise Bennett-Coverley.
Emily Zobell Marshall
Professor Zobel Marshall is a scholar of Postcolonial Literature at Leeds Beckett University, specializing in African-diasporic oral traditions and the trickster figure. She is the author of Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance and American Trickster: Trauma, Tradition, and Brer Rabbit, the poetry collection Bath of Herbs and the forthcoming Other Wild.
Geoffrey Phillip
Geoffrey Philp is a Jamaican-born poet, novelist, and playwright whose work bridges Caribbean identity, spirituality, and global concerns. His collection Archipelagos addresses climate change, while My Name Is Marcus continues his exploration of diaspora, resilience, and cultural survival.
Monica Minott
Dr. Minott is a Jamaican poet whose work richly explores heritage, memory, and language. Author of Kumina Queen, Zion Roses, and Wandering Spirits of Exile (Peepal Press), she captures ancestral memory and diasporic experience in contemporary Caribbean poetry.
Celia Sorheindo
Celia Sorhaindo is a Dominican poet, author of Guabancex and Radical Normalisation, and co-compiler of Home Again: Stories of Migration and Return. Her poetry has appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Wasafiri, Magma Poetry, and New Daughters of Africa.
Malachi Smith
Malachi Smith is a renowned Jamaican dub poet, performer, and founding member of Poets in Unity. His work asserts historical consciousness and calls for justice. Author of JAMAKU and Selected Poems, he organizes literary events, including the Jamaica Brew Literary Festival.
Andrew Moss
Anglo-Ghanaian poet, writer, and educator, Andrew Moss navigates diaspora, memory, and identity through poetry and prose in an engagement with memory, displacement, and cultural hybridity. Author of Outside of Here. Outsider Hear! and Objections, Scars & Artefacts, he reflects on migration and belonging. He is a doctoral student at the University of Canberra, Australia.
El Jones
Canadian poet, educator, journalist, and activist, Dr. Jones is recognized internationally as an abolitionist poet. She is a former Poet Laureate of Halifax and author of Live from the Afrikan Resistance!. She writes on incarceration, systemic racism, and social injustice.
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