by Esmeralda M. Kale
The spring conference of the African Poetry Digital Portal was convened on April 27–29, 2023, at the University of Nebraska. Representatives from the University of Cape Town, the University of Lomé, the University of Ghana, the University of Oxford, Cambridge University, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern University, met with Kwame Dawes, professor of English, and Lorna Dawes, associate professor of University Libraries, and the Collections Team in Lincoln, Nebraska or via Zoom.
The conference discussed how to expand the goals of the APDP Collections Hub. The APDP working teams reported on their institution’s African poetry collections and the current status of the APDP work in their institution. Data for each institution varied due to location, collection development interests, language, and type of material. There was a lively conversation about what can be considered poetry. Graduate students and scholars working on various aspects of the project shared their research and work on the portal. The technology team discussed their work on the prototype, especially design details and the possibilities based on initial findings and data.
In addition to discussing the group meeting, Dr. Ama Bemma Adwetewa-Badu, the recipient of the APDP’s 2022–23 Digital Humanities Grant, presented her project, Network Poetics: The Big World of African Little Magazines. The African Poetry Fund also organized a campus-wide conversation on “Contemporary African Poetry at the Intersections of Gender” at The Sheldon Museum of Art. Authors Patricia Jabbeh Wesley (Liberia), Tsitsi Jaji (Zimbabwe), and Mahtem Shiferraw (Ethiopia/Eritrea) read their work and then discussed poetry, gender, scholarship, their roles as African poets, editors, researchers, teachers, and arts organizers.