From Here to There: Poets Writing Migration - Online, Thurs. 5 Feb 2026 (7-8.30pm UK time)

[Ambrose Musiyiwa]

Dear Colleagues,

Exiled Writers Ink and the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series invite you to an evening of poetry and conversation focusing on migration and (im)mobility.

The readings and conversation take place online on Thursday 5 February 2026, from 7pm till 8.30pm (UK time).

As part of the evening, poets from Exiled Writers Ink and the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series will read and discuss their work and take part in a Q&A session.

The readings and conversation take place as part of Black History Month 2026.

REGISTRATION

The event is free and open to all. 

Tickets are available here.

ABOUT THE POETS

 

Jim Aitken is a poet and dramatist living and working in Edinburgh. He is a tutor in Scottish Cultural Studies with Adult Education and he organises literary walks around the city. His last poetry collection was Declarations of Love, published in 2022. Jim is a widely published poet and Associate Editor with Culture Matters.

Afsaneh Gitiforouz is a British Iranian poet, novelist, and a committee member of Exiled Writers Ink. Her work has appeared in SIDHE PRESS anthologies, To Light The Trails (2024) and To Lay Sun Into a Forest (2025), as well as in Radical Roots (2024). The Barbican commissioned her in 2022 to lead the poetry session of Age of Many Posts. 

Samuel Julius Habakkuk Kargbo is a Sierra Leonean. He is popularly known as Rabbi, the Watchman, or God Poet. He was born in Wilberforce village, Freetown. He has a BSc in Chemistry from Fourah Bay College, US and an MSc in Environmental Sciences (Hons) from Cyprus International University. Until recently, Samuel was researching Environmental Toxicology at Nagasaki University in Japan. He celebrates others as he loves to see people grow and metamorphose into butterflies.

Nada Menzalji is a British-Syrian poet, author, journalist, and translator. She has published several Arabic poetry collections, including Withered Petals for Dinner and Dark Spots on the Back of the Palm. Her work appears in multiple languages, and her English selection, Traces and Blossoms was published by Exiled Writers Ink. She has performed internationally, including as a guest poet at the United Nations.

Karuna Mistry is a British writer from Leicester who’s been published in 70+ anthologies with >100 individual poems. He has two poetry books, You-me-verse-all Hueman (2025) and debut, Sojourn: Transcending Seasons (2024) https://www.instagram.com/karunamistrypoetry

Ambrose Musiyiwa is a poet and journalist with a background in the intersection between activism, migration, and community action. He coordinates Journeys in Translation, an international, volunteer-driven initiative that is translating Over Land, Over Sea: Poems for those seeking refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) into other languages. Ambrose is also on the editorial board of the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series.

Xaviera Ringeling is a Chilean bilingual poet residing in London since 2012. Her poetry in Spanish was awarded the 2019 New Voices prize by the feminist publishing house Torremozas in Spain. Her first poetry book, Alba, was published in October 2019 by El Ojo de la Cultura, in the UK. She participated in the anthology Leyendo Poesía in London, and her poetry in English has been published in the Greenwich Poetry Workshop Pamphlet The Tide Turns, and in the online magazine Perro Negro. Her poetry is included in the anthology Equidistant Voices: Latin American poets in the UK (2023). 

Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure is a bilingual award-winning poet, novelist, librettist, short story writer, translator and visual artist who grew up in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Her novel, Weeping Tomato, won the National Arts Merit Award (NAMA) for Outstanding Fiction Book, in Zimbabwe in 2025. Her poetry collection, Starfish Blossoms (2022), won the NAMA for Outstanding Poetry Book, in 2023. In 2020 Samantha established an independent press, Carnelian Heart Publishing, to amplify the voices of Zimbabwean writers and to democratise African literature. Samantha was voted African publisher of the year in 2023 by Brittle Paper. 

ABOUT THE ORGANISERS

Exiled Writers Ink is a London-based charitable organisation founded in 2000 by Jennifer Langer. It provides a platform for writers who are refugees, migrants or in exile, and serves as a bridge between displaced writers and the mainstream literary world.

The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series is volunteer-led, and is organised by Forced Migration and The Arts in association with CivicLeicester and the migrants' rights collective, Regularise.

The series was inspired by the Africa Migration Report: 2nd Edition (African Union and International Organisation for Migration, 2024), and has open calls for poems (40 lines or less) and short prose (100 words or less) exploring: 

• African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility, 
• how African and Asian refugees are drowning in the English Channel, and 
• Edward Nkoloso, Afronauts and the 1960s Zambian Space Programme.

We take the African diaspora to include all people of African descent in all the ways they define themselves, e.g. African, African American, African Asian, African Brazilian, African Canadian, African Caribbean, African Italian, African Latino, African Palestinian, Afropean, Afro Turk, Black British, Black Canadian, Black, etc.

So far we have released two poetry collections: Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (CivicLeicester, 2024), edited by Munya R and I (both, Zimbabwe / UK), and From Here To There (CivicLeicester, 2025), edited by Nandi Jola (South Africa / Northern Ireland) and Omobola Osamor (Nigeria / USA).

"The songlines of migration" (Morning Star, 16 January 2026), Alan Morrison's review of From Here To There might also be of interest.

RECORDINGS

The readings and conversation will be recorded and made publicly accessible, in whole or in part, through the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series video playlist, and through social media and the website we are building around the poetry anthology series.

Kind regards,

Ambrose Musiyiwa

Coordinator, Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series

Ambrose Musiyiwa | Coordinator, Forced Migration and The Arts, and The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series (Video Playlist; Call for Submissions; Funding Appeal)

(Ed.) [New Book] Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (CivicLeicester, 2024. Co-editor: Munya R, from the migrants' rights collective Regularise); Welcome to Britain: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (CivicLeicester, 2023); Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (CivicLeicester, 2020)