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Yasmina Nuny

YASMINA NUNY is a poet from Guinea-Bissau. She was born in Portugal and was brought up in different African countries before going to the UK for her studies.

She began performing in 2016 at open mic events around Birmingham and owes a lot to the second city for her development as an artist. She has since been featured at events like Heaux Noire (London), Funkenteleky (Birmingham) and the Verve Poetry Festival R.A.P. Party (Birmingham).

Yasmina has also had her poetry published in two other Verve collections –  The Poetry Jam Anthology Wild Dreams & Louder Voices (2018) and Nafeesa Hamid’s Besharam (2018).

Yasmina Nuny’s debut, Anos Ku Ta Manda, is as fresh and vital as her performance style. She writes both in English and Kriol, her mother tongue, to portray plural and untranslatable existences.

Her collection – so powerful – begins with an exploration of her country Guinea-Bissau, that remains accessible through language and family. Following this welcome into her home, Yasmina offers a more intimate reading of her musings and experiences of love and relationships. The final voice that we find in the collection is a political one, exploring both the trauma and joys of Black womanhood. Anos Ku Ta Manda is defiant and the experiences it explores are informed by Yasmina’s relationship with God.

This collection also feature guest poems from up and coming poets Darnell Thompson-Gooden and Ayo.

 

SAMPLE POEM: Free

I have loved myself to this

place.

To this state.

Enough to preserve when needed,

cry when needed,

war when needed.

Shave, regrow, rebirth

as needed.

Bloom where it is possible,

learn from all of it.

Unlearn to apologize for it –

for 

myself.

We been there already,

done that already.

No longer at peace with disrespecting

God

like that.

 

SAMPLE VIDEO: