A little about me...
“Photo by August Jennewein/courtesy UMSL”.
Hey there and thanks for visiting my site!!!
Among other things, I am a writer who earned a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Missouri – St. Louis after studying cultural anthropology and presenting my ethnographic research Rhyme and Reason: Poetics as Societal Dialogue. Some of my research appears in my peer reviewed essay “Treading the Atlantic”, which is in the special edition of the Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies and was presented at the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Netherlandic Studies conference as an introduction to the keynote lecture on post-colonial memory.
In 2022, I served as poet-in-residence for Sapiens, a digital magazine about everything human, told through the stories of anthropologists. Speaking of poetry, my debut collection of poetry Shrimp (2Leaf Press, 2018), analyses identity in a post-colonial context.
If your read the newspaper (and you should) you may find some of my poetry, essays and visual art featured in the St. Louis American in articles such as “Black St. Louis artists explore generations of racial trauma and how joy heals” by Andrea Y. Henderson or in The St. Louis –Post Dispatch “From kente cloth to shrimp: symbols tell powerful stories” and others.
In September of 2016, after tracing my maternal ancestry to the Bamileke (thank you African Ancestry), the name "Elong" was given back to me in a formal ceremony by the Cameroon Royal Council, in Silver Spring, Maryland.
In Cameroon, 'Elong are affectionate and have a positive, radiant image. They are innocent and remain happy even through difficult times. They help others.'
I have hence legally added Elong to reflect pride in my Cameroonian ancestry.
Again, thank you for visiting.
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