Biography:
Oktavi
has performed as a featured reader in Los Angeles, CA and Raleigh/Durham,
NC. She has performed as a guest poet on the radio broadcast, Spoken Work Express
on KPDFK. She participated in the California Arts Council, Artist-in-Communities
Residency program. While in California, she
was one of the founding members of the women’s writing group Motley Cabal and founding editor of Teen View,
a Los Angeles newsletter for young writers. She is a member of the Carolina African-American Writers’ Collective. Oktavi has published two collections of poems “Restoration and Amandla.” Her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies.
Although her main focus is poetry one of her short stories, Pie Shell, was published in the Baltimore Review. Oktavi is a New York native who currently resides in Florida.
PUBLICATIONS:
1995 “Restoration”, Self Published Collection
Oktavi has performed as a featured
reader in Los Angeles, CA and Raleigh/Durham, NC. She has performed as a guest poet on the radio broadcast, Spoken Work Express on KPDFK. She participated in the California Arts Council, Artist-in-Communities Residency program. While in California, she was one of the founding members of the women’s
writing group Motley Cabal and founding editor of Teen View, a Los
Angeles newsletter for young writers. She is a member
of the Carolina African-American Writers’ Collective. Oktavi has
published two collections of poems “Restoration and Amandla.”
Her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies. Although her main
focus is poetry one of her short stories, Pie Shell, was published in the Baltimore Review. Oktavi is a New York native who currently resides in Florida.
PUBLICATION:
1995 “Pie
Shell” (Short Story), Baltimore
Review, Baltimore Writers’ Alliance,
Maryland
1996 “Contract on America”,
Fertile Ground, Edited by Kalamu ya Salaam & Kysha N. Brown, Runnagate Press, New Orleans, LA
1997 “Pie Shell” (Short Story), Baltimore Review, Baltimore Writers’ Alliance, Maryland
1997 “Tuesday Supper”, “C:\Backslash\Merge”,
Dark Eros, Edited by Reginald Martin, PH.D., St. Martin’s Press, New
York
1998 “Pardon Me”,
Catch the fire, a cross generational anthology of contemporary African-American poetry, Edited by D-Knowledge, Riverhead
Books, The Berkley Publishing Group, New York
1998 Amandla, Self Published Collection, Forward by
Lenard D. Moore
2001 “Afefe”, “Hilda
Juanita”, SAUTI MPYA, 10 Year Anniversary Issue, Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center University of N.C. at Chapel Hill, NC
2001 “Billy”, Bum rush the
page: a def poetry jam, Edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera, Three Rivers Press, New York
2002 “At Five”, Beyond
the Frontier, African American Poetry for the 21st Century, Edited by E. Ethelbert Miller, Black Classic Press,
Baltimore, MD
2005 “Grace”, Life’s
Spices from Seasoned Sistahs, A Collection of Life Stories from Mature Women of Color, Edited
by Vicki Ward, Nubian Images Publishing, El Cerrito, CA
READINGS:
1994 Sponda Coffee House, Hermosa Beach,
CA
1994 Hava Java Coffee Café, Manhattan Beach, CA
1995 Loyola
Marymount University, Sponsored
by John Reilly, Ph. D, Acting Chair African –American Studies
1995 KPFK Radio Broadcast, Spoken Work
Express,
hosted by Jah’key Lucien, Los
Angeles, CA,
1996 Barnes & Nobel, A Poetic Love
Song to Black Men, A performance by Infinity: The Collective (2-25-96)
1996 Carolina Friends School
Exhibition Series, LaJan Productions (2/11)
1996 St. Mark’s Chapel, Mordecai Historic Park, N.C, “A Spirit of Revival”, LaJan Productions (11-17-96)
1997 Hayti Heritage Center, St. Joseph’s
Historic Foundation, Wordsmith Series, Program Director, Titus Brooks Heagins, Durham, NC (01/16/1997)
1997 The Arts Center, African-American
oral traditions: the spoken work, spirituals, jazz and blues (2/23/1997)
1998 Eva Perry Regional Library, Carolina African-American Writer’ Collective, Raleigh,
NC (2/22/1998)
1998 North Carolina
Literary Festival, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, A Celebration of Southern Writers and Readers (04/04/1998)
1999 Bookstar, National Poetry Month,
Prof. Jill G. Waldron, Woodland Hills, CA
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