Hi, I’m Sojourner !
I am an artist, writer, and nearly life-long resident of Philadelphia, where I was shaped by the city’s bounty of porches and the sound of my grandmother’s voice calling me home.
I was born in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa to an African American mother and an Ivoirien father. In 2002, civil war struck Côte d'Ivoire and I was forced to relocate to Philadelphia, where my first and deepest longing — the longing for homeland — took hold of me, giving birth to my first poem.
Today, through my communications and web design studio, Water & Sword, I create websites and branding ecosystems for artists and creative entrepreneurs who are ready to invite the next big thing.
I spent the last few years working as a journalist and audio producer for national outlets including WHYY’s science podcast, The Pulse, and MSNBC’s politics podcast Into America, telling deeply-reported stories about health and education. I am the recipient of a Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting Fellowship, an International Women’s Media Foundation Gwen Ifill Fellowship, & I was selected as an AIR Media Scholar. Additionally, my reporting has appeared at Poynter, NPR, Roxane Gay and Tressie McMillan Cottom’s podcast Hear to Slay & on your grandmother’s radio.
Poet & writer, I archive moments of intimacy between Black women. I write about insecurity of historical archives & insecurity as a feeling that connects us to our most powerful desires.
My poems have been published in The Atlantic, The Academy of American Poets (Poem A Day), Muzzle Magazine, and elsewhere. I am a recipient of a Leeway Foundation Transformation Award, a Watering Hole Fellowship and the MacDowell Colony Fellowship in creative writing.
I formerly served as a National Student Poet, the nation's highest honor for young poets presenting original work. I was invited to the White House by former First Lady, Michelle Obama, to garner my award.
Reporting from the Belly of the Night is my debut poetry chapbook.
