Safia Elhillo
Safia Elhillo صافية الحلو | |
|---|---|
 Elhillo by Caits Meissner for Jellyfish Treasury | |
| Born | December 16, 1990 Rockville, Maryland, United States |
| Alma mater | New York University The New School |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Website | safia-mafia |
Safia Elhillo (Arabic: صافية الحلو; born December 16, 1990) is a Sudanese-American poet known for her written and spoken poetry. Elhillo received a BA degree from the Gallatin School at New York University and an MFA in poetry from The New School. Elhillo has performed all around the world. She has won acclaim for her work and has been the recipient of several prestigious poetry awards.[1] Elhillo has shared the stage with notable poets such as Sonia Sanchez and has taught at Split This Rock[2] and Tin House Summer Workshop.[3] Currently, she is a Wallace Stegner Fellow[4] at Stanford University.
Early life
[edit]Elhillo was born on December 16, 1990, in Rockville, Maryland, to Sudanese parents.[5] She was raised Muslim.[6]
Career
[edit]Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Callaloo, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day series,[7] among others, and in anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism,[1] and New Daughters of Africa.[8]
Elhillo has shared her work on platforms such as TEDxNewYork,[9][10] Under Armour’s Unlike Any campaign,[11][12] the South African State Theatre, the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway, and TV1's Verses & Flow.
Awards
[edit]Elhillo has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, receiving special mention for the 2016 Pushcart Prize.[13] She was a co-winner of the 2015 Brunel University African Poetry Prize, won the 2016 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, and has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, The Conversation,[14] and SPACE on Ryder Farm, among others. Her collection The January Children won a 2018 Arab American Book Award, receiving the George Ellenbogen Poetry Award,[15] the first Sudanese American author to win the award.[16] In 2018, she was also listed in Forbes Africa's "30 Under 30" in the Creatives category.[17] Elhillo received a 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.[18]
Works
[edit]Full-length collections
- The January Children (University of Nebraska Press, 2017).
- Home Is Not A Country (Penguin Random House, 2021).
- Girls That Never Die: Poems (Penguin Random House, 2022).
- Bright Red Fruit (Penguin Random House, 2024).
Chapbooks
- ars poetica (MIEL, 2016)
- a suite for ol' dirty (MIEL, 2016)
- Asmarani (Akashic Books, 2016)
- The Life and Times of Susie Knuckles (Well & Often Press, 2012)
Themes
In The January Children, Elhillo explores themes of belonging and identity, particularly in the context of migration and nationality.[14] In "Bright Red Fruit", Elhillo explores the complexities of identity and the longing for love using both verse and narrative. [19]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Elhillo, Safia, "Bio", Safia-Mafia website, 2017. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
- ^ Elhillo, Safia, "Safia Elhillo-Poetry", As Us Journal, 2017. Retrieved March 19, 2017.
- ^ "Summer Workshop". Tin House. Retrieved June 14, 2024.
- ^ "Meet the Stegner Fellows | Creative Writing Program". creativewriting.stanford.edu. Retrieved December 7, 2019.
- ^ "'Daughters full of all the wrong language'", Newsday, BBC World Service, July 9, 2015.
- ^ Elhillo, Safia. "Good Muslim/Bad Muslim". Poetry Magazine. Poetry Foundation.
- ^ Elhillo, Safia, "how to say" at poets.org.
- ^ "Podcast #8: Safia Elhillo". Have Your Read … ?. September 23, 2019.
- ^ "Performances", TEDxNewYork.
- ^ "'Alien Suite' | Safia Elhillo | TEDxNewYork", YouTube, January 15, 2015.
- ^ Mirabella, Lorraine (February 6, 2018). "Under Armour unveils Lindsey Vonn film ahead of Olympics". Baltimore Sun.
- ^ "Lindsey Vonn – Unlike Any". YouTube.
- ^ "Awards & Recognition", One Throne Magazine.
- ^ a b "Everything Lost Will Be Given a Name: SAFIA ELHILLO with Alex Dueben". The Brooklyn Rail. October 5, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
- ^ "2018 Arab American Book Award Winners", Arab American National Museum.
- ^ Edoro, Ainehi (November 12, 2018). "On Black and Arab Identities: Safia Elhillo's Arab American Book Awards Acceptance Speech". Brittle Paper.
- ^ "Under 30 Creatives" Archived July 12, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Forbes Africa, June 4, 2018.
- ^ "Poetry Foundation Announces 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships", Poetry Foundation, August 28, 2018.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/safia-elhillo/bright-red-fruit/was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
External links
[edit]- Official website
- "Writer Safia Elhillo talks representation, inspiration, and the heterogeneity of her identity", Council on African Studies, Yale MacMillan Center, November 13, 2017.
- Poets.org Profile
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- Living people
- 21st-century American women writers
- American people of Sudanese descent
- New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study alumni
- The New School alumni
- 21st-century American poets
- 1990 births
- Sudanese women poets
- American women poets
- African-American poets
- 21st-century African-American women writers
- 21st-century African-American writers
- 21st-century Sudanese poets