Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate’s appointment extended

By Cedric Rose

This National Poetry Month The Mercantile Library announces the extension of Professor Yalie Saweda Kamara’s appointment as Cincinnati and Mercantile Library Poet Laureate for 2024. During her 2022-’23 Laureateship, Kamara was the winner of the Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism’s 2022-2023 Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award (Smith College) and received a 2023-2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship Grant totaling $50,000. The grant will fund “Keep the Lights On,” a project that includes free community writing workshops for poetry to be projected in public spaces throughout the city, beginning this month. 

Yalie Saweda Kamara earned a Ph.D. in creative writing and English literature from the University of Cincinnati after an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University, an M.A. in French culture and civilization from Middlebury College, and BA in both creative writing and languages (Portuguese and French) from the University of California, Riverside. A Sierra Leonean-American writer and educator, is the editor of a recently released anthology and the author of two chapbooks and the debut poetry collection, Besaydoo (Milkweed Editions, 2024). Kamara’s activity in Cincinnati has included her engagement with Wordplay Cincy, where she served as a teaching artist and the director of creative youth leadership.

Kamara has mentored local poets through open Office Hours at the Mercantile Library, spoken to high school and college students and contributed to programming that honored Mayor Pureval Aftab, the Mercantile Library, Blink, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center, and Interact for Health.