Poetry with Abiodun Olatokunbo: Spice Up Your Poetry!: Infusing Yorùbá Flavour into English Composition

Poetry with Abiodun Olatokunbo:
Spice Up Your Poetry!: Infusing Yorùbá
Flavour into English Composition

As part of The Wilde Foundation’s Writers’ Festival 2025, we are proud to present Poetry with Abiodun Olatokunbo—a dynamic poetry workshop facilitated by award-winning writer and global voice, Abíọ́dún ‘Abbey’ Abdul.]

In this Spice Up Your Poetry! workshop, you’ll separate the limericks from the haikus before exploring Yorùbá poetic styles, rich with insightful verses and emotive expression. Try your hand at Oríkì, weave your words into Ẹ̀sà, find your way around Ìjálá, and more. Then see how we can transpose ‘call and response’ as well as our oral literature tradition into written illustration. Embracing the theme of ‘Women’s Voices in Shaping Cultural Narratives’, let’s shape our thoughts and heighten our wellbeing as we infuse some Yorùbá flavour with English composition.

Abbey is a writer of rare insight and resonance. A UNESCO Cities of Literature Global Poetry Slam Winner (2022), her work dances between the deeply personal and the fiercely political, holding space for both complexity and clarity. Her poetry, essays, and short stories invite readers and listeners into rich terrains of identity, justice, memory, and belonging.

She is the creator of Yorùbá Yonder, a platform that curates diasporic travel stories and life essays, and the mind behind YNAD Talks, a discussion series that explores the nuances of race, ideology, and multiculturalism. In her upcoming three-part memoir-polemic, Stained Glass Eyes: Race, Family, and Multiculturalism, Abbey draws from her schooling and lived experience across Yorùbá-Nigeria, Scots-Britain, and Japan—offering piercing reflections on prejudice and kinship, social framework and inner voice.

📍 Bush Theatre, Shepherd’s Bush, London W12 8LJ
📅 Saturday 19 July 2025
🕙 10 AM – 6 PM (exact workshop time TBC)
🎟 Tickets: £7 only

This is poetry for the brave. Book your place today—spaces are limited.