Michael Akuchie
twitter: @Michael_Akuchie
Michael Akuchie is an emerging interviewer/poet of Igbo-Esan descent who lives and studies in Lagos and Benin-City, Nigeria, respectively. He is a final year undergrad of English and Literature in the University of Benin, Nigeria. Michael is a recipient of the 2020 Roadrunner Review Poetry Prize and The 2019-2020 Hellebore Poetry Scholarship Award for his chapbook manuscript, “Wreck”, forthcoming Fall/Winter 2020.
His poems tilt towards the subjects of family, religion, spirituality, his country’s civil war aa seen through the eyes of survivors, his native language-speaking deficiency and the inner workings of the self. His poems, most times, are narrative and confessional in nature.
When he doesn’t write, he enjoys binge-watching Fox shows like: The Simpsons, American Dad, The Cleveland Show and, definitely, Family Guy. He reads poetry, novels, and sometimes dwells somewhere between one daydream and another.
He has served as Contributing Editor (Poetry) and Reader for Barren Magazine and Animal Heart Press’s Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry titled Memento, respectively. Currently, he is an Editorial Assistant (Interviews) at Nantygreens.
His favourite authors are and are not limited to the following: Alice Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Chris Abani, Thomas Harris and Stephen King.
At the moment, Michael is putting together a full-length manuscript with the tentative title, “To Begin A Yearning Like This”.
Instagram: igboesanwizard
selected publications:
- Interrogation With a Note on Identity” & “With So Much Silence in Inverse Journal
- Five Poems in Rigorous Magazine
- Hemorrhage in Roadrunner Review
- When My Knees Descend… in Little Death Lit