Nile Lansana is an interdisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago. An acclaimed writer, poet, performer, and filmmaker, his work is centered around revealing radical truths and amplifying marginalized voices and narratives through a lens of Black imagination and visionary intention. He is a nominee for the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate position. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in Journalism and English—Creative Writing. He is a nominee for the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate. He won the 2021 Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize and 2020 George B Hill Poetry Prize. His work is published in American Gun: A Poem by 100 Chicagoans, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, & elsewhere. He holds fellowships from the Rebuild Foundation and Obsidian Foundation. He is a proud uncle and the oldest of four Black boys.
Photo credit: Chip Moody @chip_moody