Introducing this year’s Emerging Poet!

Every year, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, Unbound is able to invite a brilliantly promising young poet who has not yet published a full collection to Columbia to read at the festival. The Unbound Emerging Poet Award is a wonderful way to celebrate up-and-coming talent, and a great opportunity to hear some of the voices of the future.

We are thrilled to announce that this year’s award goes to Nisha Atalie! We can’t wait to welcome her to the festival and look forward to her reading at Top Ten Wines on Saturday, April 20, at 3:15 p.m.

Nisha Atalie is a poet and organizer. Her poems have appeared in Poem-A-Day, Blood Orange Review, Yalobusha Review, Breakwater Review, and elsewhere. Her poem “Do/Do Not” placed third for the Academy of American Poets’ Treehouse Climate Action Prize. Her nonfiction writing has appeared at Rampant. Her biggest inspiration is the ongoing, centuries-long struggle to decolonize the world and uproot racial capitalism. Nisha is based in Chicago, on occupied Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi land. More of her work can be found at nishaatalie.com.