storyteller. environmental educator. cultural preservationist.
“…the poet offers us a space to reclaim that freedom, to persist in our own making, in our small exodus, without naming our perpetrators; where, for a moment, we too can feel the cool air wrapped around our Black bodies—and feel free to exhale.” – Mahtem Shifferaw
About
Ashia is a storyteller and environmental educator born and raised in Denver, CO, unceded territory of the Arapahoe, Cheyenne and Ute peoples. Writing as a queer Black femme, Ashia works to preserve, interrogate and imagine how the Black diaspora has shaped and continues to shape land stewardship in the Western hemisphere. Ashia has been published in Sierra Magazine, Atlas&Alice Magazine, The Journal, Sage Magazine, Them.us, and The Hopper Literary Magazine, among others. Ashia released a first chapbook, We Bleed Like Mango, in October of 2017. Their debut full length poetry collection, Heirloom, will be published in Spring 2023 with Write Bloody Publishing.
As an environmental justice educator with Mycelium Youth Network, Ashia believes in the power of participatory action research and cultural organizing in order to adapt to and mitigate the ongoing climate crisis. Ashia believes in the transformative power & imaginations of Black & Brown youth to shape our ecological futures.
As a book reviewer, Ashia seeks exhilarating language that makes life possible.
Ashia Ajani – “My Kin”
“Ashia Ajani’s new poem reaches for the belly, for fullness.” – Frontier Poetry
Contact
Workshops Offered: Black Environmental Writing, Storytelling & Climate Futures, Navigating White Space: Erasure Craft Workshop, Poetics of the Apocalypse, Environmental Mythology & Legends, Abolition & Decolonial Poetics.
Do you have an inquiry regarding workshops? Contact me at my email below.
ashiaajani22@gmail.com
@ashiainbloom
All workshops are sliding scale.
Ashia Ajani 