Bio

.CHISARAOKWU., MD is a Los Angeles-based Igbo American transdisciplinary poet, writer, visual/performance artist, scholar, and health futurist Her chapbook, This Wake Holding, Mmiri, received the honorable mention for the 2023 Evaristo Prize for African Poetry (formerly the Brunel International African Poetry Prize). Several institutions, including The Poetry Foundation, MacDowell, the California Arts Council, Ucross, Headlands Center for the Arts, Brooklyn Poets, Anaphora Arts, and Vermont Studio Center, have awarded her fellowships in support of her work. Her recent poetry and visual art appear in Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, Obsidian, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal and ANMLY.She is currently completing two poetry collections inspired by her Igbo heritage. A retired pediatrician and alum of the RWJ Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at Yale University, she earned her BA in History from Stanford University and her MD from Duke University School of Medicine.