Nile Lansana

Poet, Writer, Filmmaker, and Teaching Artist

2025 Make a Wave

Teaching Arts

Nile Lansana (he/him) is an acclaimed interdisciplinary artist from the South Side of Chicago. He was nominated for a 3Arts Teaching Artist Award in 2024 and the inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate position in 2023. He won the UW-Madison 2021 Ronald Wallace Poetry Thesis Prize and the 2018 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021 with two BA degrees, one in Journalism and the other in English Creative Writing.

Lansana has graced stages across the country, including Lollapalooza, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Auditorium Theater. He has been a teaching artist for youth across the Midwest, including teaching the Spoken Word track in the Wellness & Resiliency Arts Program alongside avery r young and being a workshop facilitator for the JVN Project in Madison, Wisconsin. He is a former Associate Editor for RHINO Poetry.

Currently he is an inaugural awardee of the Healing Arts Chicago apprenticeship and teaching writing workshops at the Lawndale Mental Health Center. He is a proud uncle and the oldest of four Black boys.

Nile Lansana's Website

Featured Artworks

A large group sits around a table. They are all smiling towards the camera and each person is holding a small chapbook. They are in a room with a big window and white walls.

Letters to Freedom with Sayeda Q - Nabala Cafe, 2024

A Black Masc Person with short black locs and brown eyes stands in front of a banner that reads Healing Arts Collective. The banner has the outline of Chicago sketched on it.

HAC Summit '24 Flex, 2024 Image by Onam Lansana

Sonnets & Sonics I, 2024

A Black Masc Person with short black locs and brown eyes sits on a park bench. He is wearing a light blue shirt and white pants. He is writing in a journal which is resting on a blue bag.

Block Club Chicago Feature, 2023 Image by Colin Boyle

hope lives here! HAC Summit, 2024

Booked & Busy, 2024