Ayodele Nzinga

Ayodele Nzinga
Reading at the San Francisco Public Library in 2022
Born1950s
Education
OccupationsDramatist, poet, educator, activist

Adoyele Nzinga, also known as "WordSlanger",[1] is a playwright, director, poet, educator and activist, and the first poet laureate of the city of Oakland, California.[2]

Life and career

Nzinga was born in the 1950s, and is unsure of her birthplace.[1]

She attended Laney College where she started directing theater under Marvin X.[3] She earned a MFA in Writing and Consciousness from the New College of California and a Ph.D. in Transformative Education & Change from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

In 1999, she founded the Lower Bottom Playaz theater troupe.[4] They were first hosted at the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, and starting in 2023 at BAM House, an art center for African-American arts.[4] They became the first troupe to stage August Wilson's American Century Cycle[5] in chronological order.[6]

In 2021, she became Oakland's first Poet Laureate for a term of two years.[7]

Selected works

  • The Horse Eaters, Nomadic Press, September 2017[8]
  • SorrowLand Oracle, Nomadic Press, November 2020[9][10]
  • Incandescence: Poems of Power, Not a Pipe Publishing, September 2021[11]

References

  1. ^ a b "Oakland's Ayodele Nzinga Forges New Memories". Alta Online. April 5, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  2. ^ Chazaro, Alan (July 23, 2021). "Ayodele Nzinga, Oakland's First Poet Laureate, Is Here for the People". KQED. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  3. ^ "Ayodele Nzinga's True-to-Life Fictions". East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda. July 1, 2015. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  4. ^ a b Janiak, Lily (August 8, 2023). "She's made theater in Oakland for decades. Now Ayodele Nzinga finally has her own venue". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  5. ^ "August Wilson's American Century Cycle \ The August Wilson African American Cultural Center". The August Wilson African American Cultural Center. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  6. ^ "Ayodele Nzinga | Alameda County Arts Commission". arts.alamedacountyca.gov. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  7. ^ Exumé, David (July 15, 2021). "Meet Oakland's First Poet Laureate: Dr. Ayodele 'WordSlanger' Nzinga". NPR. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  8. ^ Nzinga, Ayodele (2017). The horse eaters. Oakland, California: Nomadic Press. ISBN 978-0-9994471-4-7.
  9. ^ Haber, Zack (February 19, 2021). "Ayodele Nzinga lifts from the bottom in her new book of poetry". The Oaklandside. Retrieved March 21, 2026.
  10. ^ Nzinga, Ayodele (2022). Sorrowland oracle (2nd ed.). Oakland, CA: Nomadic Press. ISBN 978-1-955239-13-4.
  11. ^ Nzinga, Ayodele (June 29, 2021). Incandescence. Not a Pipe Publishing. ISBN 1948120917.
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