Born in Wisconsin on a Sunday in July, Kemi Alabi (they/them) is a Chicago-based poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and teaching artist informed by the Black surrealist tradition. They’re author of Against Heaven (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award. The collection was a Kate Tufts Discovery and Leslie Feinberg Award finalist, Chicago Review of Books Award winner, and one of New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2022. Kemi’s poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, Poetry, Boston Review, the Grammy-nominated album Difficult Grace, and elsewhere.

Kemi is co-editor of The Echoing Ida Collection (Feminist Press, 2021), an anthology of Black reproductive justice writing. They've spent over a decade building narrative power for trans and queer bodily autonomy, most recently as the 2024-2025 Feminist in Residence at Northwestern University, where they developed the MELONCHOLIA audio collage and ritual. They’ve received fellowships and grants from MacDowell, Sewanee, Berlin’s Junge Akademie, Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, and Beloit Poetry Journal, where they were the inaugural Iron Mouth Curatorial Fellow. Kemi is working on their second poetry collection and can be contacted here for readings, workshops, classroom visits, and manuscript consultations.

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