Dasan Ahanu

Dasan Ahanu is a poet, cultural organizer, scholar and performing artist based in Durham, North Carolina. In addition to performing across the country, Dasan has hosted or coordinated many Poetry, Jazz, Hip Hop, and Cultural Arts events. His work has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR) where he is noted for his appearances on “News and Notes with Ed Gordon” and “State of Things with Frank Stasio.” His writing is featured online and in print publications. He has been showcased on NBC 17, featured on the third season of Lexus Verses and Flow aired on TV One, and in a documentary entitled, “Poet Son” that aired on WUNC-TV as a part of the North Carolina Visions film series. He has worked with a variety of North Carolina Hip Hop and Jazz artists and released a number of spoken word recordings. Dasan is a resident artist with the St, Joseph’s Historic Foundation/Hayti Heritage Center in Durham, NC where he has developed poetry and spoken word programming for youth and adults. He has competed regionally and nationally in poetry slam as a founding member and coach of Durham, NC’s own Bull City Slam Team. The team has won two regional championships and achieved a third-place finish nationally. Dasan is co-founder and managing director of Black Poetry Theatre, a Durham based theatre company that creates and produces original poetry and spoken word based productions. In 2004 he was awarded an Indy Arts Award by Independent Weekly Magazine for his work in arts and activism. Then in 2015, he was awarded the honor again, the first time in the award's history that has happened. He is the author of four poetry collections that include The Innovator (HWJW Publishing 2010), Freedom Papers (HWJW Publishing 2012), Everything Worth Fighting For (Flowered Concrete 2016), and Shackled Freedom: Black Living in the Modern American South (Willow Books 2020).