Penn State Altoona English professor featured in African poetry festival

ALTOONA, Pa. - Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, professor of English at Penn State Altoona, has been invited as a featured poet at the "Pa Gya! Literary Festival" in Ghana, West Africa. The festival brings together writers, poets and students from around the world in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, West Africa.

Wesley will offer poetry readings, give a talk, and participate in a panel on writing. She will also conduct a poetry writing workshop on the theme "Writing Africa Anywhere: The Poetics that Keep Us Relevant."

Wesley will also join renowned Ghanaian poet and professor Kofi Anyidoho to visit the University of Ghana in Accra, where she will speak to creative writing students about her poetry and writing African literature.

Wesley's poetry has been the subject of several recent critical reviews by literary critics and scholars across Africa and in the U.S., including "A conversation between Patricia Jabbeh Wesley and Dike Okoro," a chapter in the book, "Futurism and the African Imagination: Literature and Other Arts" (Routledge, 2021), and a magazine article, "Poetics of Advocacy: Womanhood and Feminist Identity in Patricia Jabbeh Wesley's 'Where the Road Turns,'" by Dr. Bartholomew Chizoba Akpah, (Socrates Journal).