City Building with Youth Poet Laureate Chidera Ikewibe

Chidera Ikewibe is an Igbo Nigerian Canadian artist and poet whose work often combines her experiences and cultural identity. Her works often incorporate Nsibidi – an ideographic/pictographic writing system from the south-eastern region of Nigeria. She was the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) winner for the senior playwriting competition for 2018 for a play she wrote about the Nigerian Civil War. She has been published in poetry anthologies such as Voices # 1, published by Poetry in Voice, Island Shores Anthology; and in the anthologies Catch the Whispers and Passages of the Heart, published by the Poetry Institute of Canada. A recognized spoken-word artist in the Windsor community, Ikewibe has performed at CJAM’s open mic night, and was invited to create and recite poetry for the Substance Abuse Program for African Canadian and Caribbean Youth for their Black History Month celebration, and with Windsor Essex Local Immigration Partnership for their youth meeting. Ikewibe has also appeared on CJAM Radio as the host of University Redacted.

As an artist and community-builder, Chidera’s areas of interest are race and ethnicity, Anti-Black racism, institutional decolonization, poetry as performance, spoken-word radio, Black Diaspora, playwriting, mask making, and mixed media. She is pursuing her Bachelor of Arts (BA) in psychology and BA in English and creative writing at the University of Windsor.

The Youth Laureate program is supported by the City of Windsor.