Biography
Ajanaé Dawkins (she/her) is a poet, conceptual artist, and theologian raised between Metro Detroit, Michigan, and New Rochelle, New York. She works through poetry, visual art, performance, and audio to explore the politics of faith, grief, and intimate relationships among Black women.
As a theologian, she blends cultural criticism, memoir, and theology as autotheory to consider the relationship between Black church history, spirituality, and creation. Her work has appeared in Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, the Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, and more. Her exhibition, No One Teaches Us How To Be Daughters, debuted at Urban Arts Space in 2024. Her chapbook, BLOOD-FLEX, won the New Delta Review prize and is forthcoming in Spring 2025.
Dawkins is an Elizabeth George Grant Recipient. She was the Taft Museum’s 2022 Duncanson Artist in Residence and Ohio State University’s 2024 UAS Community Artist in Residence. She is a fellow of Torch Literary, the Watering Hole, and Pink Door. She cohosts the VS Podcast with Brittany Rogers at the Poetry Foundation. Dawkins is writing a manuscript exploring the 1990’s disappearance of her great aunt and developing a theology space for artists on the margins of their faith to explore spirituality and creation. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.
