About Writers across oceans
An Idea Takes Root
In 2013, while living in Côte d’Ivoire, Karla Brundage met the Ghanaian poet and youth organizer Sir Black, who was using spoken word to connect young people in Ghana to their African roots. At the time, Brundage observed how hip-hop and rap had become global languages of resistance and expression, deeply influencing youth culture from Oakland to Accra. Moved by Sir Black’s mission and her own experiences as an educator and poet, she envisioned a creative exchange between West Oakland and West Africa—a transatlantic dialogue through poetry that would bridge communities and histories.
The idea for this project had been forming for many years. Brundage had long been inspired by the relationship between rap and the griot tradition, seeing hip-hop as a phoenix for the Black community, rising from the ashes “fists first.” She drew from the legacy of movements that came before her—from the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program in the 1960s to Wanda Sabir’s African American Celebration of Poetry in West Oakland—and from the belief that words could unify and uplift Black people. Influences such as June Jordan’s Poetry for the People, Ishmael Reed’s Multi-America, and the teachings of KRS-One helped shape her understanding of poetry as both a cultural inheritance and a tool for liberation.
Through this project, Brundage sought to foster love, connection, and self-knowledge among people of African descent. Initially focused on Oakland and questions of community healing—how to end violence and restore love—her vision expanded as she listened to the ancestral call of “Sankofa,” the principle of going back to retrieve what has been lost. By creating a poetry exchange between West Oakland and West Africa, Karla Brundage hoped to honor that call, uniting voices across continents through the shared rhythm of spoken word and the enduring power of the Black oral tradition.
The Poetry Exchanges
The first international poetry exchange, West Oakland to West Africa, brought together a dynamic collective of poets from Oakland and Ghana for a yearlong Pan-African poetry writing workshop. The exchange, led by poet and educator Karla Brundage and Sir Black, included poets ranging in age from 21 to 65 and representing a spectrum of sexualities, genders, racial identities, life experiences, and socio-economic backgrounds—all united by a shared commitment to the power of poetry and cross-cultural connection. The collaboration culminated in a Poetry Slam in Accra, Ghana where the writing partners met in person for the first time. Poems from the exchange were published in Our Spirits Carry Our Voices
Sisters Across Oceans was born from the second poetry exchange, which connected women writers from Hawaii with women writers in Ghana during the pandemic from 2020 to 2021.
The third poetry exchange, which took place in 2021 amid the Black Lives Matter movement, connected writers from California to Kenya and Ghana and resulted in the anthology Black Rootedness: 54 Poets from Africa to America. From the roots of this exchange and anthology grew an experimental and interactive poetry journey bringing together poets in-person and via Zoom to share their dramatic readings of their works with audiences.
A New Era
Inspired by the beauty and tranquility of her father's home on the island of Hawaii, founder Karla Brundage moved to Waimea in 2024 to teach and tend to the sprouts of a new idea for bringing writers together to form community -- a writers retreat off the beaten path. Between the aftermath of the pandemic, which left an ever-increasing disconnect, and the alluring, yet disruptive advancements in AI and Large Language Models, she believes it is more important than ever to nurture human creation, community. and cultural exchange. With this in mind, she invites you to the first Writers Across Oceans writing retreat will be held June 6-13, 2026.