Poet, Author, and Editor
Poet
Chisom Okafor was born in Enugu, a town in South-Eastern Nigeria. He studied Human Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, graduating in 2016. He then completed his professional training/internship as a Dietitian and Clinical Nutritionist at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu, in 2020, and worked in the front line during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic at UNTH, Enugu.
Photo Credit: Jo Snow
Author
Chisom Okafor’s debut chapbook, All I Know About a Heavy Heart Is How to Carry It was selected by Jaki Shelton Green in 2024, as the winner of the Jacar Prize, and published by Jacar Press. His full-length book of poems titled, Winged Witnesses, was published in December 2025 by the University of Nebraska Press.
He spent time at the 68 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria, working as a Dietitian and Clinical Nutritionist by day and a poet by night. He was also a Human Nutrition and Dietetics Instructor at the Nigerian Army College of Nursing, Yaba, between 2020 and 2023.
He has received nominations for the CAAPP Book Prize, the Brunel African Poetry Prize, the Gerald Kraak Prize, and the Pushcart Prize. He has also received support from the Sundress Academy for the Arts (for the SAFTA residency) and from the Commonwealth Foundation.
His works appear in The Ending Hasn’t Happened Yet, an anthology of disabled and neurodivergent poets (ed. Hannah Soyer) and In-Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers (ed. Rebecca Burke).
His poems have also appeared in The Poetry Review, Porter House Review, Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, The Account Journal, The Hellebore, Palette Poetry, Frontier Poetry, SAND Journal, A Long House, The Raven Review, Jacar One, Lolwe, West Trade Review, and elsewhere.
Editor
Chisom Okafor’s work in the intersections of disability advocacy and literary craft is evidenced by his participation in the Versus Versus Anthology (ed. Rachael Boast) as a member of the advisory panel. He has appeared in readings for the anthology at StAnza (Scotland’s International Poetry Festival), and the Global Crip Poetry Celebration at the Southbank Center, London.
He has previously served as co-editor for the 20.35 Africa Anthology Series, Chapbook Editor for Libretto Magazine, Assistant Editor for Black Warrior Review, and poetry reader for Frontier Magazine.
He is presently completing his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama, where he was a Graduate Council Fellow as well as a finalist for the Jerome K. Phipps Prize in Poetry. He is also completing his MS in Human Nutrition, with a generalist focus on Clinical and Community Nutrition.
Chisom Okafor 