Nick Makoha
Born
Uganda
Occupation(s)Poet and playwright
Notable workKingdom of Gravity;
The Dark
AwardsIvan Juritz Prize

Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet and playwright. His writing has appeared in publications and outlets including The New York Times, Poetry Review, Rialto, Poetry London, Triquarterly Review, Boston Review, Callaloo, and Wasafiri.

Biography

Makoha was born in Uganda, and left the country as a young boy with his mother to escape the dictatorship of Idi Amin,[1] and has since lived most of his life in the England.[2] Now based in London, he has also lived in Kenya and Saudi Arabia.[3]

He published his first pamphlet, entitled The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, in 2005.[4] He was part of Malika's Kitchen, the poetry collective co-founded by Malika Booker and Roger Robinson, and went with members of the collective to their first writers' retreat at the Arvon Foundation, where they were tutored by Kwame Dawes and Leone Ross.[4] In 2008, he took part in The Complete Works mentoring programme initiated by Bernardine Evaristo, being mentored by George Szirtes.[3] Szirtes said of his work, which was included in Ten: New Poets, edited by Bernardine Evaristo and Daljit Nagra (Spread the Word, 2010): "There is in Makoha's work an intriguing balance between the immediate and the stately that fits his material and offers possibilities for expansion and further exploration. All that – his personal history, the history of his country and the leaving of it – suggests to me a talent at the beginning of a genuinely important road."[3]

Makoha went on to represent Uganda in the Poetry Parnassus that was part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad held in London.[5] In 2015, he was joint winner of the Brunel University African Poetry Prize for his chapbook Resurrection Man, which also won the 2016 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize.[6][7]

His first full-length collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.[3] Carol Rumens in a Guardian review of her best poetry books of the yearwrote that Makoha's work "is charged with ethical sensibility. The lines protest as they sing".[8]

He was the 2019 writer-in-residence for the Wordsworth Trust and Wasafiri. His play The Dark, which draws on his experiences on having to leave Uganda,[9] was shortlisted for the 2019 Alfred Fagon Award.[10]

He is a graduate fellow of Cave Canem, which was founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996 "with the intuition that African American poets would benefit from having a place of their own in the literary landscape."[11]

Based on the model of Cave Canem, Makoha established the Obsidian Foundation,[12] which helps black poets of African descent advance their writing practices.[13]

He was the winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz Prize for A Low-Pressure System, "a personal journal that resists any fixity, but instead is a series, as Ivan Juritz Prize judge, Will Eaves notes, 'perpetually in flight'. This retelling of the events related to the Entebbe hijacking in 1976 is paralleled against a series of flights from Nick’s own experience, and despite writing through dramatic historical events, his moving voice can be felt strongly throughout."[14]

References

  1. ↑ "At Gunpoint by Nick Makoha". proletarianpoetry.com. 12 September 2017. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  2. ↑ Miller, Isaac Ginsberg (May 2019). "Reviews". Chicago Review (62). Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Nick Makoha". Peepal Tree press. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  4. 1 2 Makoha, Nick. "How I Did It: Forward First Collection Special – Nick Makoha on 'Kingdom of Gravity'". Poetry School. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  5. ↑ "Poetry Parnassus – the full list of poets". The Guardian. 17 April 2012.
  6. ↑ "PS Member Nick Makoha joint winner of African Poetry Prize". The Poetry Society. 18 May 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  7. ↑ "Nick Makoha wins 2016 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize". Wha'ppen?. Peepal Tree Press. 1 March 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  8. ↑ Rumens, Carol (3 December 2017). "Carol Rumens's best poetry books of 2017". The Guardian.
  9. ↑ Beacom, Brian (4 February 2019). "Nick Makoha's new play emerges from the horror of Idi Amin's Uganda". The Herald.
  10. ↑ "2019 Award". Alfred Fagon Award. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  11. ↑ Makoha, Nick (8 January 2014). "Cave Canem – Home Of Black Poetry". Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  12. ↑ Baafi, Isabelle. "Interview with Nick Makoha about the Obsidian Foundation". Magma Poetry. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  13. ↑ "Founder | Nick Makoha". Obsidian Foundation. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
  14. ↑ Free, Imogen (6 July 2021). "Reflecting on this year's Ivan Juritz Prize". Retrieved 7 January 2024.
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