Anika Nailah is an author, poet, educator, and speaker. As a Native African American, she has been co-designing creative approaches to issues of social justice with individuals and groups for more than 25 years.
Recently inspired by Lisa Gay Hamilton’s film Beah: A Black Woman Speaks, Anika’s National Liberation Poetry Tour is a one-woman poetry performance experience traveling across America to women’s prisons, coffee houses, juvenile detention centers, community centers/art spaces, halfway houses, colleges/universities, and bookstores. It is both a performance and an opportunity for people in communities to gain a deeper understanding of racism in their lives and their power to interrupt it. Audience members watch, listen, create, and share expressions of liberation.
Listen to Anika talk about the power of her work and its impact on an audience. National Liberation Poetry Tour Experience: What Is It?, Part I:
The Tour experience invites audiences to participate in liberating themselves from the damage that racism in America has caused in our everyday lives.
What People Are Saying…
[pullquote]”When Anika performs her poems, her words rise up from the ground through her feet and body into her voice. The feeling of authenticity is powerful. She calls us to be fully present and awake.-Mary R.”[/pullquote] [pullquote align=”left”]”Anika’s performance is riveting, and her poetic voice strong. I felt awakened, challenged and inspired.-Anne Y”[/pullquote]