When Poetry, Politics and Black Women Meet With Dr Panya Banjoko

The legacy of Nottingham women who performed poems at the Association of Caribbean Family and Friends (ACFF) Centre are now being surfaced through oral histories. Through mining Nottingham Black Archive (NBA) the women who harnessed performance poetry to inspire young people in Nottingham, in the belief that poetry was a tool through which cultural awareness might be developed and confidence instilled in young Black people, have been surfaced. Their stories once hidden as cultural producers and their impact on the city politically is now being amplified by NBA.

Dr Panya Banjoko is founder of Nottingham Black Archive (NBA) and has directed it since 2009. The Archive has recovered the stories of World War I soldiers in an Arts Humanities Research Council funded project and the narratives of the Windrush generation through a Windrush Day Grant. Panya is also a UK based writer and multi-award-winning poet and her practice as poet and cultural historian often centres on her personal engagement with museums and archives over two decades. Her poems feature in numerous collections, anthologies, and exhibitions and her most recent collection (Re)Framing the Archive was published by Burning Eye Books in 2022.

This talk is part of the University of Nottingham History Festival. To find out more, visit our web page: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/departments/history/news-and-events/history-festival.aspx