The 2025 edition of the All African Women Poetry Festival (AAWPFestival) is centered on the theme Of Memory and Loss, inspired by the profound work of our honoree, Her Excellency Prof. Abena Busia. This theme goes beyond personal grief to explore the vast landscape of memory—our collective histories, cultural identities, ancestral legacies, and the knowledge systems passed down through generations.

Today we see globalization, migration, and environmental changes continuously reshaping our realities, this edition seeks to interrogate not just what we remember but how we remember. Through spoken word, storytelling, and folklore, we will reflect on the preservation of African heritage/heritage sites, the shifting nature of identity, and the urgent need to reclaim and safeguard our languages, traditions, and environments.

Rather than focusing solely on loss as an absence, AAWPFestival 2025 will also celebrate the resilience of memory—how it endures in oral traditions, in the rhythms of poetry, and in the potency of our mother tongues. It will be a call to action, urging us to archive, document, and sustain the stories that define us before they slip away.

Thematic Areas of Focus

1. Memory & Oral Traditions

• The role of spoken word, storytelling, and folklore in preserving history
• The power of matriarchal memory and intergenerational knowledge transfer
• Reclaiming lost narratives and amplifying silenced voices
  

2. Identity & Belonging

• Language as a vessel of identity: the fading of indigenous languages and efforts to revive them
• The complexities of African identity in the diaspora
• The tension between modernity and tradition in shaping selfhood
  

3. Heritage & Cultural Preservation

• The importance of archiving and documenting African artistic and literary traditions
• The role of women as custodians of cultural memory
• How colonization, migration, and globalization have influenced cultural retention and erasure
  

4. Loss & Healing

• Grief, nostalgia, and the ways we remember those who came before us
• Memory as Resistance: poetry and art as tools for processing collective trauma
• The intersection of spirituality, ancestry, and healing practices
  

5. Climate Action & Environmental Memory

• The loss of natural landscapes and indigenous ecological knowledge
• Climate justice through poetry and activism
• Honoring the land: storytelling as a tool for environmental preservation

The  2025 edition will serve as both an artistic celebration and a cultural intervention, challenging us to hold onto what defines us while shaping a future that honors our past. Through poetry, performance, and discourse, we will explore how memory shapes our identities and how loss—if left unaddressed—can lead to the erosion of the very essence of who we are.

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