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.CHISARAOKWU. (she/her) is an Igbo American transdisciplinary poet artist, writer, scholar, and performer. Inspired by Igbo tradition, quantum physics, medical science, and the natural world, her work weaves images and text into poetry that explores memory, grief, and joy. She has received fellowship support from The Poetry Foundation and MacDowell, The California Arts Council, Cave Canem, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, among other honors. Her chapbook, This Wake Holding, Mmiri, received the 2023 Evaristo Poetry Prize’s Honorable Mention from the African Poetry Book Fund.
Her most recent work appears in Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, and Hayden's Ferry Review. A retired pediatrician, she earned her MD from Duke University and BA from Stanford University. In addition to consulting, she facilitates creative writing workshops and is working on two full-length poetry collections and a novel. In 2025, she was named a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow.
© Argel Rojo, Courtesy of Los Angeles Performance Practice