about

Born Issele-Uku, Nigeria

JK Anowe (he/they) is an Igbo-born poet, editor, and teacher. They are the author of the poetry chapbooks The Ikemefuna Tributaries: a parable for paranoia (Praxis Magazine Online, 2016) and Sky Raining Fists (Madhouse Press, 2019).

His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Chicago Reader, Gulf Coast, Palette Poetry, 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, and elsewhere. They were a finalist for the 2019 Gerard Kraak Prize and have also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2020) and the Best of the Net (2014 and 2020).

Anowe has served as assistant poetry editor at The Nation, poetry editor of Sycamore Review, and poetry chapbooks editor for Praxis Magazine.

The poet now lives with their spouse in Chicago where they are a Gwendolyn M. Carter Fellow in African Studies and poetry candidate in Northwestern University’s Litowitz MFA + MA. They are at work on their first collection of poems and a novel.

If you care to look, you can find Anowe on instagram @jk_anowe .