Spoken Word Saturday is a showcase of the amazing Spoken Word Poetry talent that can be found from coast to coast. You can find a playlist of all Spoken Word Saturday curations on the League’s Youtube channel!

Titilope Sonuga

Take a pause for “You are Welcome Here” by Edmonton’s ninth Poet Laureate, Titilope Sonuga. Titilope will be delivering the League’s annual Anne Szumigalski lecture this fall, on September 21! Stay tuned to Poets.ca for registration details.

The story of Titilope Sonuga’s emergence as a globally renowned poet, playwright and performer is a testament to the transformative power of storytelling. She renders, both in verse and performance, a quality of rootedness and unflinching womanhood that extends beyond the bounds of a single poem or poetic performance.

Her genre-defying work has propelled her to a vibrant life in the arts. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Down to Earth (2011), Abscess (2014), and This Is How We Disappear (2019) and has composed two spoken word albums, Mother Tongue (2011) and Swim (2019).

She is a writer who blends a remarkable elegance of craft with an ever-present human quality that carries her words into expansive realms scripting campaigns for global brands, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the White Ribbon Alliance. She served a two-year term as an ambassador for Intel Corporation’s She Will Connect campaign, a program dedicated to empowering women and girls through technological literacy, commerce, and opportunity.

Titilope Sonuga has written three plays: The Six (an intergenerational exploration of womanhood), Naked (a one-woman play) and Ada the Country (a musical). She played a lead role as an actor in the hit Nigerian television series Gidi Up.

She was the first poet to perform at a Nigerian presidential inauguration in 2015 and was the 9th Poet Laureate of the City of Edmonton (2021-2023).

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