Nana is a Poetry & Spoken Word collective made up of four Black, Female, Muslim Creatives. The women who are already individually well known and recognised for the art of poetry amongst their many other talents in our community have come together to form a collective, the ::NANA:: Collective.

The women have been sharing poetry, their backgrounds and Rakaya recently took us on a tour of Barcelona where she attended a Poetry slam.

We hope to hear and read more about and from the four women, in the meantime head over to their Instagram and support the collective as well as be inspired by their art.

Muneera’s poem below calls us to honour ones  self.

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Poem – To all the men by @muneera_pilgrim inspired by an calling to honour one’s own self.

A post shared by :: nana :: (@_nanacollective) on Mar 8, 2019 at 3:13pm PST

Rakaya Esime Fetuga

“Rakaya Esime Fetuga is a creative writer and spoken word poet based in London.

Her work engages with women, faith, empowerment and today’s culture. Rakaya’s writing speaks to her West African heritage as well as her British identity.

Rakaya graduated from the Royal Holloway English and Creative Writing BA in 2017. She won the Spread the Word Young People’s Laureate for London Poetry Awards in 2017, was shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Poetry Prize in 2018 and won the Roundhouse Poetry Slam 2018.”

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Growth is not meant to be easy the air is bitter outside your comfort zone your body may weep as you're pushed beyond it, citrus-wind pulling tension from your waterlines let the tributaries run from your cheeks and drag you away muscle may tear you are meant to struggle and fall out into a new bigger space and realise you can straighten you can rotate your joints here, realise it wasn't so bad after all ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· · ··· Photo @wasidanijuphotos @wasidaniju Location @rumiscave Words by myself from poem Growth

A post shared by Rakaya Esime Fetuga (@rakayaesime) on Sep 12, 2018 at 2:42am PDT

Sukina Pilgrim

“Sukina Pilgrim is a Spoken-Word, Playwright, Workshop Facilitator and Event Organiser and co-founder of Muslim female Hip Hop duo, Poetic Pilgrimage. She has facilitated creative writing workshops across the world empowering communities to use the written word as a tool for dialogue and as a means for accessing their authentic voice. She has launched a workshop series called The Art of Speaking from the Heart that she has delivered around the world. Sukina has played an intrinsic role within the British Muslim creative communities as a performer and events organiser and has created platforms for many national and international Muslim artists to express themselves and launch their careers. Her work has been featured on the BBC News, World Service and Asian Network, ITV, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera and has been written about in the Huffington Post, Daily Mail, The Voice and many other international media outlets. In March 2015 Al Jazeera screened a documentary about her group called Hip Hop Hijabis. Sukina made her theatre debut in 2016 in a production called Malcolm X at the KVS (Royal Flemish Theatre) in Brussels which was critically acclaimed and is currently writing a play for the KVS Theatre called Afropean / Human Being. In 2017 she delivered a Tedx Talk on the healing potential of poetry. Sukina holds a she holds a BA (Hons) Degree in English Literature and Caribbean Studies and is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Industries and Cultural Management.”

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“poets. have the toughest job in the universe- of turning silence into eloquence.” ~ Sanober Khan . . Catch me tonight on @britishmuslimtv (Sky 762) alongside my brother Sufi Mem, sharing my story and pieces of my heart and soul. God could have moulded me into many forms but how generous of Him to have made me into a poet, there are times when I realise that all I have to give are these fragile yet fragrant words, as an offering upon His altar, May He accept. . . Tonight 8pm (GMT) or you can stream at britishmuslim.tv . #poet #poetry #spokenword #spokenwordpoetry #poetess #poetrycommunity #muslimpoet #femalepoet #sufipoetry #sacredpoetry

A post shared by Sukina Pilgrim الحمدلله (@sukina_pilgrim) on Dec 26, 2018 at 6:48am PST

Saraiyah Bah

“Saraiya Bah draws on the traditional West African storytelling style of the griot to wax lyrically about identity, faith, the relationship with self and everything in between.

Beginning her poetry career in 2016 where she frequented many open mic events, she was selected to be featured on Islam Channel’s Lyrically Speaking, a series that showcased Muslim female poets and spoken word artists.   She has shared her words on multimedia platforms including The Islam Channel and British Muslim TV, had her work featured in an art exhibition that was dubbed “beautiful, bold and brave” by Dazed.com, cited as an up and coming Spoken Word artist to look out for on The Huffington Post website and regularly recites her poetry around The UK.

Dubbing herself as the Muslimah in The City, Saraiya has been blogging about her life living and working in London as a young black woman who follows Islam for four years.

She is also Co-Producer of Black Muslim in Britain.

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Thank you Allah! And if you’ve been making dua for me, thank you. And if you’ve reached out to me irrespective of my poor communicative self, thank you. And thank you to my damn self for getting laser hair treatment. The sideburns were getting out of control 😩😅🤦🏾‍♀️

A post shared by An Elusive Ambivert. (@saraiyabah) on Aug 9, 2018 at 11:25pm PDT

Muneera Pilgrim

“Muneera Pilgrim is a Bristol-born international Poet, Writer, Cultural Producer and co-founder of the Muslim female Spoken Word and Hip-Hop duo Poetic Pilgrimage.
Muneera conducts expressive based, purpose-driven workshops. She shares art, guest lectures, host and finds alternative ways to educate and exchange ideas. She regularly contributes to Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2; she is an Artist Associate with The English Touring Theatre where she is producing new works after the success of her contribution to The Othello Project, as well as being a freelance writer, writing think pieces for The Guardian, Amaliah, Huffington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera Blog, Black Ballard and various other digital and print platforms. She has been featured across the BBC network including BBC News, as well as Sky News, Sky Arts, Al Jazeera, ITV and various other television channels.

Muneera holds an MA in Islamic studies where she focused on Black British pathways to spirituality, migration, gender and race. More recently she has completed her second MA in Women’s Studies where she focused on the intersection of faith and spirituality, race, gender, auto-ethnography and methodologies of empowerment for non-centred people. Her innovation in her work won her ‘The Ann Kaloski-Naylor Award for Adventurous Academic Writing.

She also freelances as a Community Engagement and Education Consultant for various organisations and initiatives such as Roehampton University, Bite the Ballot, and The Everyday Muslim Project, where she has been working on heritage projects with the aim of centring, the voices of Muslims. The most recent project is the British Black Muslim Project, which led to the first Black British Muslim Archive.

If she was asked to describe herself in three words, she would say ‘Just Getting Started’. Muneera colourfully etches a poetic space of dialogue which is accessible regardless of religious and cultural boundaries. Rooted in spirituality she uses communication and art for edification and change.”

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This is really not a poem, this is me coming off the phone to someone and analysing how they made me feel in our interactions. It was supposed to be a pros and cons list of how they benefit my life, but it turned into more of a manifesto reminder. This was then, but I needed to come across this now: Every day Without skipping one Choose to love you. Erase try from your vocabulary. Congratulate yourself for not giving up and for turning up. Be compassionate with yourself. Refine your values and stay true to them. Do your best. Remember that people come to you with all of their issues, so be higher and don’t be the person who puts their issues on to others Interrogate the heart of you Learn the art of you. Expose your own holes and slowly start to fill them in. There is no race. You will live with you until you are no longer breathing, And when your physical is gone you will be with you as an ever living soul Learn to like you Not just tolerate you. Be kind to you. Have gratitude. Up your psychic self-defence Because even those who are for you Sometimes can’t support you, may sometimes break you and may not even rate you. So you support you Build you Rate you love you Cherish you Sometimes the issue is them and not you, but doubting you makes you the problem. Create Produce Share Detox every single day Allow love to light up every part of you When you are in the dark allow it to be glorious and womb-like. Know you are precious. Blessed is the world that you came into. You are the breath left when God answered someone’s prayers You are rare air You are beloved. Admire the four corners of your skin Every day Let go of every bitter and every broken. Every word that was used as a weapon against you. Situations don’t make you People can’t break you Heart ache will past But right now you are here so Feel free and be you Every single day #spokenwordpoetry #wordwithqueens #poetry #poetrycommunity #blackwomenpoets #muneerapilgrim #culturalproducer 📸 @blackgirlcon

A post shared by Muni Pilgrim (@muneera_pilgrim) on Mar 6, 2019 at 3:14am PST