Cynthia Parker-Ohene
Like a traditional griot, Cynthia Parker-Ohene creates a world of wonder(ment). “Core Black Lives” are depicted in striking images that highlight places and pieces of history. The poems in Drapetomania are composed of a lush, crisp language that allows the reader to inhabit lands where “sons will not be stopped by 5 0” and where “dna leaches into birchbark.” Raw and polished, truth and sardonic, these poems unabashedly shine “in the stubborn light.”
Cynthia Parker-Ohene is a Hurston-Wright Fellow with the Hurston-Wright Foundation. She was awarded the Zora Neale Hurston Scholarship at Naropa University. She is also a Callaloo Fellow. Her work has been featured in the following publications: Ecotone, Crab Orchard Review, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Black Nature: Four Centuries of African-American Nature Poetry, Tuesday: An Art Project, among others. Cynthia Parker-Ohene has an MFA from the Saint Mary’s College of California where she was the Chester Aaron Scholar of Creative Excellence.
