Akilah Oliver

(1961 – 2011)

Akilah Oliver (April 18, 1961 February 23, 2011) was born in L.A. Our beloved friend, poet, teacher, performer, activist, mother, sister passed away in her home in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, N.Y.

In the 1990’s she founded and performed with the feminist performance collective Sacred Naked Nature Girls. For several years, from the mid-90’s Akilah lived and raised her son Oluchi McDonald (1982-2003) in Boulder, Colorado where she was a teacher at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Recently, in New York City, Akilah taught poetry and writing at Eugene Lang College, The New School, Pratt Institute and The Poetry Project. She was a PhD candidate at The European Graduate School and a member of the Belladonna* Collaborative.

Akilah Oliver’s books include the she said dialogues: flesh memory (Nightboat Books, 2021; Smokeproof Press / Erudite Fangs Editions, 1999), a book of experimental prose poetry honored by the PEN American Center’s “Open Book” program; and A Toast In The House of Friends (Coffee House Press, 2009). Her chapbooks include A Collection of Objects (Tente, 2010), a(A)ugust (Yo-Yo Labs, 2007), The Putterer’s Notebook (Belladonna*, 2006), and An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet (Farfalla, McMillan & Parrish, 2004). She read and performed her work throughout the country as a solo artist and with a variety of musicians and collaborators including Tyler Burba, Anne Waldman, and Rasul Siddik. She was an artist in residence at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Los Angeles, and received grants from the California Arts Council, The Flintridge Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Among her many other projects, she was writing a book-length theory of lamentation. Posthumously, a CD collaboration of her work has been released by Fast Speaking Music and Belladonna*, simply titled Akilah.

Photo of Akilah Oliver by Teresa Hurst

 

The information on this page is meant to act as an archive and resource for Akilah’s work. If you have recordings, links, or articles to add, please email Belladonna*.

Video Recordings

Akilah Oliver: 3 Readings

A film by Ed Bowes featuring performances & texts by Akilah Oliver

2011


Marathon reading of the she said dialogues: flesh memory by Akilah Oliver

Hosted by Belladonna* Collaborative, April 18, 2021

Featuring readings by Rachel Levitsky, Michelle T. Clinton, Kim Oliver, Rachel Zolf, Steven Taylor, Fanny Ferreira, Jennifer Firestone, S*an D. Henry Smith, Carla Harryman, John Malpede, David Henderson, Imani Elizabeth Jackson, Tonya Foster, Natalie Peart, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Danielle Brazell, Jaye Elizabeth Elijah, Anne Waldman, Erica Hunt, Erica Kaufman, Eleni Sikelianos, Danielle Vogel, Marqueta Oliver, Laura Meyers, Andrew Spiers, Airea D. Matthews, Stephen Motika, Dalia Elhassan, Hannah Zeavin, Denise Uyehara, Nancy Agabian, Gail Scott, Saretta Morgan, Jasveen Kaur S., Julie Patton, Michelle Puckett, Lou Florez, Marcia Oliver, and Marcella Durand, and HR Hegnauer.


A Celebration for Akilah Oliver’s the she said dialogues: flesh memory

Hosted by The Poetry Project, April 1, 2021

The Poetry Project is proud to join Nightboat in celebrating the republication of Akilah Oliver’s beloved book, the she said dialogues: flesh memory, a collection of poems which — 20 years on — continue to sustain us with new, essential, and prescient force in their investigation of “the non-linear synapses between desire, memory, blackness (as both a personal identity and a non-essentialist historical notion), sexuality and language.” Brilliant in their listening and utterance, Oliver’s poems embrace grief, desire, obstacle, and possibility, and draw us across time as Tracie Morris observes in her new foreword, into “this kind of gathering together, a collective state of being called she.”

Readers and performers include: Tyler Burba, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Tonya M. Foster, Tobi Haslett, Harmony Holiday, Erica Hunt, Joyce LeeAnn Joseph & LaVonne Natasha Caesar, Marqueta Kilgore, Rachel Levitsky, Tracie Morris, Eileen Myles, Marcia Oliver, Julie Patton, Tiana Reid, Eleni Sikelianos, Stacy Szymaszek, Anne Waldman, and Rachel Zolf. With special thanks to Nightboat and to co-editors Laura Meyers, Marcia Oliver, and Rachel Zolf.


Akilah Oliver reading at Parachute: the Coney Island Performance Festival, September 2009

When asked to read, Akilah created a poem especially for the festival using a woman's blog about Coney Island as her source text. The tape ran out before Akilah finished reading her poetry both in this video and in real life. It is strange when things work out that way. Akilah Oliver was a deeply treasured member of the literary community. We are grateful to have known Akilah and honored to have had her participate in the first Parachute Festival. She was a brilliant and beloved poet whose generosity of spirit will be missed by many. Thank you, Akilah.


Akilah Oliver & Tyler Burba "A Toast In The House of Friends"
Segue Series at the Bowery Poetry Club. New York City, April 19th, 2009


Akilah Oliver reading In Aporia and The Stand Still World
San Francisco, CA, 2007

 

Audio Recordings

 

Books & Chapbooks

 

Online Work

 

CDs

  • Akilah
    (Fast Speaking Music & Belladonna*, 2011)

  • Matching Half
    with Anne Waldman & Ambrose Bye
    “My Ongoing Query” & “Strangeness of Living”
    (Fast Speaking Music, 2008)

  • Harry’s House
    Volume 1

    “In Aporia”
    (Fast Speaking Music, 2012)

 

Commentary & News

 

Memorials & Tributes

  • In Aporia: The Annual Akilah Oliver Memorial Reading
    with Nick Von Kleist, Krystal Languell,
    Wendy S. Walters, and Eileen Myles
    The New School, New York
    September 19, 2012

  • In the Midst of Words I Wanted: A Tribute to Akilah Oliver
    with Julie Patton, Tonya Foster, and Danielle Vogel
    AWP Conference, Chicago
    March 2, 2012

  • In Aporia: The Annual Akilah Oliver Memorial Reading
    with Julian Brolaski, Rachel Levitsky, Lauren Nicole Nixon, Erik Freer, Karl Leone and Kaley Foley
    The New School, New York
    September 12, 2011

  • Naropa University, Summer Writing Program
    Boulder, Colorado
    June 17, 2011

  • The Poetry Project with Belladonna*
    New York
    June 15, 2011

  • Working [class] Reading Series:
    An Akilah Oliver Celebration
    Oakland, California
    June 3, 2011

  • 90-day upliftment ceremony held by Lou Florez
    Denver, Colorado
    May 23, 2011

  • Naropa University
    Boulder, Colorado
    April 17, 2011

  • Remembering Akilah
    Los Angeles, California
    April 16, 2011

  • Midwest Naropa Writers & Red Rover Series
    Outer Space Studio, Chicago
    April 8, 2011

  • Middle Collegiate Church
    New York
    March 3, 2011

  • Nine-day upliftment ceremony held by Lou Florez
    Denver, Colorado
    February 25 – March 5, 2011

  • Meditation
    Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado
    February 25, 2011